As It Seems
by HidingLight
Summary: The sequel to Out of the Basement! Tony and Gibbs adjust to having separate teams while planning their wedding, cases that were laid to rest spring to new life, Dorney learns what it means to be an agent, and everyone learns the hard way that nothing is as it seems. Slash Tony/Gibbs, McGee/Abby, Ziva/OC (Dion).
1. Chapter 1

_Ahhhh… my old friend! So glad to be back in this 'verse. It has been percolating for over six months, and I'm really looking forward to this journey! Only two chapters have been written so far, so the updates won't be very quick, but I promise to do my best to make them worth the wait! Much, much love for everyone who has taken the journey through Out of the Basement. I hope you'll enjoy its continuation! :) _

As It Seems: Chapter One

"…_through sickness and health, 'til death do you part?"_

The minister's words echoed through Jethro's head. As they were repeated back, he reached out and took Tony's hand. Tony's eyes met his, and he smiled at him. They were heavy words, a vow meant to last a lifetime, and promising that the lifetime would be spent together.

Tony leaned over and whispered in Jethro's ear, "Three months, and that's us."

Jethro's smile only got bigger, and he and Tony locked eyes through the rest of the vows as Breena took her turn. They were distracted by the sudden outburst of clapping and cheers as the couple in front of everyone shared their kiss, the marriage now official.

The small, packed church started emptying, and they made their way out with the rest of the crowd to head over to the reception. Twenty minutes later, the NCIS group gathered outside of the reception hall, waiting for each other. They would be sitting together once inside, and were eager to congratulate the bride and groom.

Finally, the limo pulled up. Palmer got out, holding the door open for Breena as she climbed out as well, and took her hand. Tony joined Abby in shouting their congratulations, and Tim even whistled. The happy couple approached the group, and hugs and handshakes were shared as they took their turns telling Breena how beautiful she looked, and Palmer how lucky he was.

They headed in together behind the bride and groom. Tony felt Jethro's hand in his, and he smiled at him. Tim had Abby's arm linked through his, and Dion's hand was on the small of Ziva's back. Even Ducky's date was leaning in closely, whispering in his ear, and Tony felt that romance was in the air.

They made their way to their table, clapping as the bride and groom were announced. Breena had a huge family, and there were close to two hundred people in the room. Tony considered the plans he had yet to really start for his and Jethro's wedding. He was on the fence about what to do. He wanted something simple, but how simple was yet to be determined. He looked around the room at the fancy lighting and the ribbons everywhere, and shook his head the slightest bit to himself. He did like the candles in the middle of the table, but he imagined them more on the mantle at home than as the centerpiece for their wedding.

Abby had him looking through wedding planning books at lunch a few days prior, and she was desperate to help him plan the perfect wedding, but he had no idea what the perfect wedding really entailed for him. He knew Jethro wanted simple as well, but other than that, his fiancé hadn't been really forthcoming with details, and he didn't know what to do. Part of him just wanted to shove everyone into a courtroom and get it over with, but he knew it was too important to them both to not do something special. He didn't even know who he wanted to perform it. All he could think about were the people around that table, his team, and a few others being with him and Jethro as they said those magic words, standing with them as they vowed to make it through anything and everything.

He suddenly missed his team. They weren't really close with Palmer, so they weren't at the wedding, but it still felt weird to not have them there. They'd spent the past month and a half working on getting Dorney settled in, and were slammed with a stack of cases a mile high. Parke was finally back in the field, and they were spending a lot of time together with their workload, and had even been mingling with the MCRT as they tried training in various areas together.

He was actually looking forward to Monday. Parke had worked to gather all sorts of information from the Melinda Stafford videos while he was confined to the office. Based on that information, Critten and McGee had worked together to compile a database that could be ran against murders in any area that Stafford had ever lived in. It was running its search over the weekend, and they were going to come in on Monday to the results.

Jethro knew that Tony had gotten lost in his thoughts again, something that had been happening more and more over the past month, and he poked him under the table. Tony smiled sheepishly back at Jethro, and realized that everyone else had left them to stand in the buffet line.

"What ya thinking about?" he asked quietly, a small smile on his face letting Tony know he wasn't mad.

"Everything," Tony said. "From _our_ wedding to the Stafford Database."

"Any ideas yet on what you want?" Jethro asked, turning to Tony with a hopeful look on his face.

"Nothing like this," he said with a chuckle, and Jethro looked relieved. "What do _you_ want, Jethro? Honestly."

"I don't really care as long as you're there, our people are there, and we're happy."

"Yeah, but neither of us would be happy doing something like _this_," he said, gesturing around the room. "So there has to be some kind of parameters for what would keep us within the happy zone."

Jethro saw the desperation in Tony's eyes for some kind of clarity, and he knew that Tony was struggling with it. He didn't want the wedding planning to be a stressor for him. He had left it in Tony's hands because he wanted him to be able to have whatever he wanted. He'd already been down the aisle four times, and he hadn't really liked too much of the frills, bells and whistles.

"Let me think about it?" he finally asked, knowing that if he could give Tony some kind of response, it would at least help him get started, and at the rate they were moving, he was afraid it was never going to happen. Tony's incredibly relieved smile and nod let him know he'd better think of something.

"I think I'm going to go hit the bar," Tony said. "Wait for the food line to die down a little. You coming?"

"Sure."

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Abby and Tim were standing hand in hand as they waited in line at the buffet table. Abby leaned into him, talking softly.

"I was hoping that this would help Tony get some ideas, but he's been spaced out every time I look at him. I know he's thinking about that project you guys have been working on. He was totally spacing every few minutes when we were going through the books on Wednesday at lunch. I don't think he understands just how much is going to go into this! Time is of the essence! They only have three months, well, fourteen weeks until Labor Day Weekend. He's got to find a place for the ceremony, a place for the reception, someone to _do_ the ceremony, caterers, a DJ, place settings, decorations, pick out some music-"

"Honey!" Tim finally cut her off, and she looked startled. "Just… give him some time. He wants to keep it simple. Maybe he doesn't want all that. He'll let you know when he starts making decisions. He knows you want to help, but don't you think he's a little overwhelmed right now?" Tim looked at her with his "Get Out Of Jail Free" look. Abby squinted at him, knowing that he was using it, but she was even more angry that he was right.

"I just want it to be perfect for them," she said with a sigh as she began putting stuff on her plate.

"And it will be." Tim loaded the rest of his plate in silence, thinking about how Tony had told him after his lunch with Abby on Wednesday that he was about to elope just to get out of planning the wedding. He knew that his girlfriend was trying her best to be there for Tony, but she was putting more pressure on an already pressured man. He knew that Tony was beyond anxious to get to the Stafford cases, sure that something was going to come of it, and he had seen him working with Dorneget, Parke, and Critten as they got used to being a team together, not to mention training _him_ to be SFA. It was all going well, but it was stressful.

He wondered how much he was in the doghouse with Abby, but he knew that Tony needed someone to cut her off at the pass. He'd thought at first that giving Abby a wedding to plan would be good for them. She would be focusing on the idea of forever, and he had hoped that it would help ease her nerves about them. She was doing a lot better, but she had told him that she was afraid that her flight instinct would one day kick in, and though her honesty had hurt, it had been good for them. He had been honest with her and told her that he was afraid she would too, and they had been trying to keep as open and honest with each other as possible about it. He figured a heads up would be nice if the time came, but so far things had only been getting better.

He sat his plate next to Abby's at the table, and asked her what she wanted to drink. Abby tried to glare at him, but it turned into a smile instead. She asked for a glass of Shiraz if they had it, and he kissed her softly before going to get it.

Abby watched as Tim walked away towards the bar, and she smiled wider and shook her head. _Just can't stay mad at him. _She sighed heavily, and looked down at her food to decide what to sample first.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Ziva and Dion were talking while waiting at the bar for their drink orders to be filled. Dion's restaurant was opening that Friday, and there was a lot left to be done. She knew that he was going back over there after the reception to make sure all of the deliveries that were coming in that day were handled correctly. He had hired the entire staff now, and she had been helping whenever she could.

She found that she was actually pretty good at the business side of things, and she was surprised to find that she was enjoying it when Dion would ask her opinion on this or that. They had stayed up for hours on many occasions going over ideas that they had come up with that flourished into big plans. They were discussing the Assistant Manager Dion had hired, and whether or not he would be able to handle everything necessary. They had their doubts, but he was the best candidate that had applied, and time was up, so they had decided to give him a chance.

That was something else that Ziva had found herself surprised by. Dion was saying things like, '_We_ decided on' and 'What do _we_ think about this?' He had started including her in so much, relying on her opinions, and it was making it feel like _they_ were starting the business together.

She watched the man standing next to her as he took their drinks, and when he turned to hand her a glass, she wondered if this was the real thing, possibly her happy ending.

_Funny, _she thought. _Feels more like a beginning._

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Ducky's date, Candice, had excused herself to the restroom, and he watched her go with a smile. She was a charming woman that he had met at a conference three weeks prior. He hadn't been planning on bringing a date, but they had been in constant correspondence since their introduction, and he was quite taken with her. She was intelligent, polite, funny and warm. Her compassion for people was beautiful, and her sense of humor made him feel lighter the more time they spent with one another.

She had moved to D.C. from Chicago, taking a position at George Washington University to teach Public Health classes. He related well to her, and they had already been on multiple dates together. When Palmer encouraged him to bring her to the wedding, he took him up on the offer, and was surprised that she said yes without hesitation.

He watched her leave the room, and turned to Jethro next to him to find him wearing a crooked smile. When his eyes drifted to Tony next to him, the younger man wasn't nearly as shy about his glee.

"Looks like the two of you are hitting it off. We could always use someone around who specializes in communicable diseases. Added bonus- she seems pretty stable!" Tony reached for his wine, and took a sip.

"Jethro, if you would, please," Ducky said. Immediately, Gibbs' hand smacked the back of Tony's head.

"Ow! Been a while since you've gotten me that hard!" Tony said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Whoa! What did I just miss?" Abby asked appearing by his side with a plate of cake.

All three men turned red, Tony going the darkest. "Just a headslap, Abs!" he said, realizing how that had sounded.

"Oh! Good! Was kind of worried for a minute there." She sat down with her cake, and a moment later, Tim sat down next to her.

The group settled into lighthearted chatter as Candice rejoined the table. The music playing wasn't half bad, and Ziva and Dion were part of the crowd of swaying people. Once Abby and Tim had finished their cake, Abby pulled Tim out onto the floor with her. Ducky and Candice excused themselves to go get another glass of wine from the bar, and Tony and Jethro sat together at the table, suddenly ignoring everyone around them. They were leaning in to one another, talking softly.

"Have you thought of anything, yet?" Tony asked with a smile, looking calmer than he had been in days.

"I was kind of thinking I'd like the ceremony to be outdoors," Jethro said with a shrug, glad to see Tony looking relaxed. "Churches aren't really my thing, and I don't have any place special in mind, but the weather is usually really nice that time of year."

Tony smiled broadly, and leaned in a little closer. "I think that would be really nice. Maybe we could find some place where we could have the reception right there so there's none of this back and forth stuff. No sense in dragging everyone all over town. Less hassle for all of us."

"I could definitely go for less hassle," Jethro agreed.

"Wow! I think we just made our first decision!" Tony said with a sudden energy that made Jethro chuckle. Tony watched him smile, and took in the way his blue eyes shone. He felt that calm core inside that he was feeling more and more lately, and he reached out for Jethro's hand. "Come dance with me," he said quietly.

Jethro looked up him a little surprised, but shrugged and got to his feet with his fiancé. They made their way out to the floor near Abby and Tim. As they had done on a couple of occasions now, Tony slipped his hands around Jethro's neck, while Jethro slipped his hands around Tony's waist, and they made slow, swaying circles in time to the music. With their eyes locked on one another, they didn't notice the stares around them, both good and bad.

Abby was practically pounding on Tim's shoulder in excitement to watch the two of them in such an intimate pose. Ducky stopped mid-conversation with Candice when he saw them, and she stopped to look as well, smiling at Ducky's joy. Ziva caught a glimpse of them over Dion's shoulder, and smiled to herself before leaning the side of her head against his happily.

Multiple people in the room saw them dancing and began talking quietly with one another, making comments that sparked political discussions amongst those at their tables. Neither man noticed, nor did they care. Jethro didn't even know the song playing, but he followed the soulful rhythm and held Tony close. His eyes closed as he leaned his forehead against his lover's, and let their bodies move in time.

Tony felt the warmth of the man against him, and smiled contently. He could stay like that forever, safe in Jethro's arms, their friends next to them, and he decided that there would definitely be dancing at their wedding. He sighed happily, and let himself be carried away on the sounds of the music playing and the idea that in a few months, they would be dancing as husband and husband. All thoughts of work finally left his mind, and the crowd of people around him disappeared. Right then, he was happy.

Two songs later, they were still dancing. Abby kept watching them over Tim's shoulder, and he kept holding back the chuckle. He loved how happy she was when she thought of them being together. He knew that she cared about them deeply, and she had told him multiple times that she didn't think either would ever be happy, so for them to find it with one another made her ecstatic.

He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "Are you that happy, Abs?" She pulled back and looked at him in surprise.

"I never really thought of it like that," she said softly, wondering if that was insecurity she heard or a genuine curiosity. "I'm pretty happy, though," she whispered with a smile, leaning in to kiss Tim gently. He kissed her back with an equal smile, and held her a little closer. She rested her head on his shoulder, realizing that she'd been so deeply enthralled in how cute and brave she thought it was for Tony and Gibbs to be dancing, that she had forgotten she had the same thing, or at least pretty close to it, in her own arms.

As Abby laid her head on Tim's shoulder, he decided that he'd gotten his point across. As happy as he was for Gibbs and Tony, he was kind of feeling overlooked. He held Abby close as they danced, and he felt her focusing on him. It was incredible. He tilted his head against hers, and smiled.

"You really do look beautiful tonight," he said softly.

Abby sat up, a dreamy look in her eyes as she saw Tim's honest expression. "Thanks," she said so softly that she almost whispered. She'd gone dress shopping with Ziva, and she picked out a dark royal blue dress that fit a little more snugly than she was used to, but Ziva assured her was perfect. They found a matching blue tie that Tim wore with a dark grey suit, and she thought it did something for his eyes. They were somewhere between blue and grey tonight, and she stared into them as they danced, finding herself falling into them further and further.

McGee brushed one of the loose curls out of her eyes from the way she had her hair styled, and the look that he gave her made her heart beat twice as hard in her chest.

"Tim?" she said, her voice breaking.

"Hmm?" he said, watching her face for what she was thinking.

"I really do love you." Tim's smile stretched across his face, and he leaned forward, letting his head rest against Abby's.

"I really love you too, Abby."

Something changed in Abby. It was like a train switching tracks. It was still going in the same direction, only now, instead of how focused she had felt on Gibbs and Tony lately, she felt that focus being trained in on her and Tim. She started wondering if they would one day have a wedding like this, and what she would want, and what Tim would want, and who would be at _their_ wedding, and where they would have _their_ ceremony. She thought she should freak out at the idea, but it suddenly seemed so right inside.

She breathed in the fresh scent of the man in her arms and his cologne, and she imagined smelling it as they danced at their own reception.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Jethro was holding Tony tightly on the dance floor when Tony whispered in his ear. "I think I need to grab something to drink." Jethro pulled back the slightest, a happy smile on his face as he took Tony by the hand, and led him back to the table. Tony reached for his glass of water, and lifted it to his lips before he had even sat down. Jethro sat in the chair next to him, and Tony saw that Jethro's focus was completely on him.

"I don't think I've ever enjoyed a wedding this much," Tony said before taking another drink from the glass.

"I think I'm having a better time with you at Palmer's wedding than I had at most of my own weddings," Jethro said with a chuckle before raising his own drink to his lips. Tony chuckled as well with a sad smile.

"Weddings shouldn't be so stressful. They should be special, intimate, important, but not stressful. I don't want ours to be stressful. The only thing I want to have to worry about is whether or not everyone is there, and that there's cake, laughter and some dancing."

"I'm liking the sound of this more and more," Jethro said as he leaned in to place a soft kiss on Tony's lips. Tony pulled back in a happy daze, loving the affection.

"Who do you need to be there, Jethro?" Tony asked, looking into Jethro's eyes with such a gentle expression that he felt the honest answer being pulled from him.

"I need you there, obviously, and I need Ducky and Abby, Tim and Ziva, Tobias and Dad." Tony nodded at his list, and smiled. "What about you? Who do you want there?"

"Other than you? Hmm… Let's see. There's Ziva, Abby and Tim, Ducky, Jimmy, Greg and Elly, and I'd really like Dorney, Shane and probably even Vance there." Tony noticed the slightly surprised look on Jethro's face towards the end of the list, and he gave him a curious look. "Who surprises you most?"

"I guess I shouldn't really be surprised about Shane and Vance, but I am a little."

Tony nodded. "Well, you know that Shane and I have been in touch frequently for safety check-ins, and after everything that happened, he's kinda one of the family now. And Vance has really been there for us in the past couple of months. Hell, he knew I was going to propose the same day the rest of the team found out. I think he's trying to find a place amongst us, and though it will never be as close and intimate as the rest of the team, he's definitely put his ass on the line for us. Guess I just feel like he's supposed to be there."

Jethro nodded in understanding, and then took a deep breath, afraid to ruin their evening by broaching such a sensitive topic, but he wasn't able to keep from asking. "What about your dad?"

Tony simply smiled, and shook his head. "I don't want him there. I don't think he's going to be okay with us, and I don't care whether or not he is. He could have changed his tune completely on the subject, but I don't want him there. I want those people close to me, that have always supported me, and encouraged me to be there. Those people that I know I may turn to in our not so great moments. Those are the people that deserve to be there; those are the people I need."

Jethro smiled brightly at him. "I'm really glad you feel that way."

Tony laughed. "You really don't want him there, do you?"

"Nope. I'd rather run him over with my truck. If you want him there, if you change your mind, I'll understand though."

Tony took Jethro's hand in his again. "Let's dance some more. Imagining you running over my dad is making me all warm and fuzzy, and I want an excuse to be as close to you as possible!"

Jethro chuckled, but went with Tony to the dance floor, immediately pulling him close. He slipped his hands around Tony's neck this time, loving the feel of Tony's hands on his waist. They danced through a couple more slow songs before the DJ decided that it was time for the traditional wedding floor crashers, and they ran for the safety of the table as the chicken dance came blaring through the loudspeakers, and a group of people flocked to the floor.

"There will be NO chicken dance, no YMCA, no Electric Slide… none of that, at our wedding!" Tony said over the music.

Jethro nodded, and pulled Tony past the table and towards a side exit. Tony followed willingly, knowing Jethro wasn't going to leave without saying goodbye to at least Abby and Ducky. They stepped out into the lot next to the building, and Jethro pulled Tony past it into a garden that was designed for the photographers to use. The sun had gone most of the way down, and there was only a faint pink glow on the edge of the horizon.

"That's actually really beautiful," Tony said quietly, looking up at the sky.

"Yeah, it's peaceful out here."

"No chicken dance. _Definitely_ no chicken dance." Tony's head was shaking, and Jethro laughed.

"I had something I wanted to ask you, but I didn't want to add to the stress of the wedding, and I have gotten the sense lately that it's becoming a bit overbearing for you." Jethro looked up at Tony tentatively as they walked along the cobble walkway, and saw that Tony's expression confirmed it.

"Yeah. You know, it wouldn't be so bad if Abby wasn't so set on throwing us this big huge ceremony. I just need to find a way to get through to her that all of the traditional stuff means nothing to me. It's going to mean everything just to have them there, and to be saying those words, and making that promise. All of the other stuff is just extra fluff, and boy does she _love_ the fluff. I know she wants to help, and I'd love to let her, but she wants to blow it so far out of proportion, and it's just not us."

Jethro nodded, finally understanding the true stressor was not hurting Abby while putting together a ceremony that they would actually enjoy. He wondered if he should talk with Abby about it, and decided to think about that for a while.

"Don't worry about Abby, Tony. Just tell her what you just told me. I'm sure she'll understand."

Tony shook his head. "I tried, but it's just not getting through. I'll think of something though."

"Well, what I wanted to ask was what you wanted to do for our honeymoon?" Jethro stopped, and pulled Tony close to him by the waist.

"Honeymoon? I hadn't even thought about that. You mean we're actually going to take off work for a week, and leave Balboa all alone?"

Jethro chuckled, and shook his head. "That's what we have SFAs for, Tony. If you want, you can even combine our teams while we're gone. I know they'll all be more than willing to take direction from McGee. Critten has been around him more than Ziva or I lately, and I know Parke and Dorneget have been working closely with Ziva in the gym. We'll figure it out. Could be nice to get away together for a while."

"Definitely! We thinking some fun in the sun, or some place with a view, or what?" Tony looked more excited than he had been in days, and Jethro smiled broadly back.

"Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go to Italy. Naples? Rome?"

Tony was stunned. He stared back at Jethro with wide eyes and a slightly gaping mouth. "Uh, yeah! That sounds awesome!" A bright smile spread across his face, and a moment later, Tony was kissing Jethro.

Jethro relaxed into the embrace and kiss now that he had his answer, and breathed in relief. He'd already ran the idea past Vance that they would need some time off, and the idea of combining teams was a possible solution that they had discussed. He was startled from the kiss as Tony suddenly pulled away.

"We're never going to get to see anything though." Tony suddenly looked serious, and Jethro looked at him quizzically. "I'm going to have to speak Italian most of the time, and you're going to be constantly clawing my clothes off and taking me back to the hotel room," Tony said with a playful smile.

Jethro shook his head and held Tony tighter, bringing their lips closer together again. "I've definitely thought of that," he whispered before kissing Tony again.

They'd been standing there making out in the garden for almost ten minutes when Tony's phone started ringing from his pocket, startling them both and making them jump back. Tony groaned and pulled it out of his pocket, recognizing Elly's ringtone. "Must be a double header tonight, and I'm up to bat," Tony said, shaking his head. Balboa's team was on first call, but Tony's was second seeing as he was the only one at the wedding.

"Hey, Elly. What's going on?" he asked, putting the phone on speaker so Jethro could hear.

"Boss? I really hate to disturb you, I know you're at the wedding, and I'm so, so sorry, but you wanted to know if we got any direct hits from the search, and we do. We have a highly likely victim. My phone just alerted me of the results." Elly sounded genuinely distressed to be calling his boss during the celebration, but Tony was suddenly energized. They'd been working their asses off for this for almost two months now, and it was suddenly starting to look like a fruitful labor.

"Call Parke and Dorney, tell them to meet us at the office." Tony hung up as Elly was saying "Will do."

Jethro looked at him with a sad smile. "Go. I'll find my way home."

"If you want to leave now, I can drop you by the house on the way. Wouldn't mind a quick change of clothes actually," Tony said.

"Okay. Let's go say goodbye to our people, and let them know why we're leaving. McGee will probably be interested to know that your program worked." Tony nodded, and they hurried back inside. Tony pulled Tim and Abby aside and told them as Gibbs said goodbye to Ducky and Candice.

About fifteen minutes later, they were back at the house. Tony was slipping out of his suit, and Jethro was grabbing the pieces to hang up for the drycleaners. When all was said and done, Tony was in a much more comfortable pair of black pants, and a dark green button-down. He was feeding his belt through his pants when he noticed Jethro was staring at him.

"What?" he asked shyly in that way he got when Jethro was shamelessly checking him out.

"Will you wear green at the wedding?" he asked in a slight tone of amazement.

Tony smiled brightly. "If you'll wear blue," he bargained.

"Deal."

Tony leaned forward and kissed Jethro while he secured his gun. The kiss deepened, and a minute later, Tony finally broke away, both men breathing heavily.

"I will be so glad when this damn case is over," Jethro more growled than spoke.

"Hold that thought," Tony said back just as seductively. "If this turns out to be a false alarm, or something we need to wait for more information on, I'll be waking your ass up when I get home. And tomorrow's Sunday, so who knows? I might get you alone for a while before the weekend is over anyway."

Jethro raised an eyebrow at Tony before Tony gave him another quick peck. "Love you, Jethro."

"Love you, too, Tony."

With that, Tony turned and left Jethro standing there to go find out if his long held theory about Melinda Stafford was correct.


	2. Chapter 2

_Ahhhh… so nice to be back in this 'verse! Thank you all so much for the great feedback! I'm glad you've come back for more. This chapter is NSFW ;) Enjoy!_

As It Seems: Chapter Two

Tony got to the office with four cups of coffee, and went straight to Elly's desk, tossing his backpack towards his filing cabinet. He looked over Elly's shoulder at the program running on the PC, and tried to figure out what it meant.

"Hey, Boss," Elly said, typing ferociously at his keys, screens lifting and dropping at a rate that made Tony's eyes hurt as he tried to catch glimpses of what he was working on.

"Hey, Elly. Whatcha got?"

Parke and Dorneget came off of the elevator together, rushing over to their area, and tossing their stuff down as well. They came to stand behind Tony, looking over Elly's shoulder.

"We got a hit that has a 78.2% certain match to our data. I'm pulling up all of the data that it aligned with so we can compare."

Tony nodded, and Elly began putting stuff up on the plasma. Parke and Tony moved with a cup of coffee towards the bigger screen to read things that were coming up. The pages were arranged so they could all be read, and then the last was a screenshot of a case file with a woman's picture on it. Dorneget leaned over Elly's shoulder, watching him work and trying to figure out how he was doing things.

Parke moved closer to the screen, and began deciphering what they were looking at.

"The location ping was the hospital that Melinda Stafford gave birth to her twins at. The relationship ping was that the woman killed was the _daughter_ of a nurse at the hospital- oh, that doesn't sound good." He and Tony exchanged pained expressions.

Elly started reading off his screen. "The details that were changed in her descriptions are dead on our assumptions. She stated that she killed a nurse at the first hospital she was at in three different sessions. She'd been to a couple of different institutions before she was placed where she is now, but "the first hospital she was at" probably refers to the hospital she gave birth in, where she believes it all started. And as our other assumption, she's killing the children of the victims she's mentioning, not the victims themselves, making them learn the pain of losing a child."

"What's the victim's name?" Tony asked. Elly blew up the case report large enough on the screen that it could be read easily, and Tony and Parke both realized how young she really was.

"Natalie Jericho," Elly read. "She was eighteen at the time, and it was brutal. She was five months pregnant, and there was a knife plunged multiple times into her stomach. The knife was never found. The baby, of course, didn't survive."

"That's twisted," Dorney said as he came over to the plasma, shaking his head.

"If her mom was a nurse when Stafford had the twins, she'd be pretty old by now. Is she still alive?" Tony asked quietly.

A few more clicks on the computer, and Elly shook his head. "No, but she has a brother and a sister that are." A few more clicks later and an article came up on the screen from an old newspaper clipping. "This is in the original case file. Her brother and sister were a few years younger than her. They had offered a reward for any information that could be found on who had killed their niece, and searched the scene and the area around it for weeks after police finished with it, looking for the knife."

"They sound like they were a close family," Dorney said. "Was the baby's dad still around?"

Elly clicked around through the case file. "He had an airtight alibi- he was in jail. Light stuff, apparently. Guy _really_ liked his weed." The weird look on his face made Dorney snicker. Tony glared a little at him.

"Sorry, Boss," Dorney said as he cleared his throat and turned towards the screen, looking over his shoulder briefly at Elly who gave him a crooked smile and a slight headshake.

Parke was being rather quiet, and Tony looked at him with concern. "Whatcha thinking, Greg?"

"Demented woman is right where she needs to be, just didn't get there soon enough. It took all of these pieces coming together to catch one break, one anomaly, and we've stumbled on just how sick her mind really is. She's intentionally and successfully lied through all of these interviews, and she's gotten away with so much. I'm afraid of how many of these we're going to find."

Tony saw the darkness in Greg's eyes, and he knew that feeling. It was the edge of hopelessness. He knew he had to do something to redeem it.

"You guys are incredible, you know that? By working together on this, and putting your talents and your resources to their best use, you've created a way to get past the monster's mask, and we're going to find justice for all of the families that she's taken her anger out on over the years. You should be very, very proud of yourselves. I can see you working together to develop some kind of system like this one day to run _all_ cold cases through to see if there are any details that might be able to connect cases that the current system doesn't have. We're not just taking normal data here and running it together. The information on those spreadsheets comes from serious analysis of the videos and case files we've had to work with. Can you imagine if we applied the same concept to the cold case files?"

Parke perked up at the idea, looking at Tony with wide eyes. "You mean, analyzing all of the cold cases for a psychological profile that we could run together with all of the tangible information, and see what lines up? That would be incredible! Extremely time consuming, but if we had more psych analysts on a cold case team that went through and reviewed the cases, they could create a system that could run like this one, and we could run current cases against them."

Tony nodded. "I'm sure the Feebs are probably doing something like it, but we haven't had the brains here to do it before. You guys have put this together in a month's time, maybe six weeks? And that's with over forty hours of video analyzed. I know that's not what you've really signed up to do, but you could teach this technique to others, and when it's needed, you could help them with their cases."

The group of men looked back and forth at each other, a new found energy spurring them on.

"So what's next?" Dorney asked.

"We need to see what we can do to connect Stafford to Jericho's death. We need something that can tie her to it definitively. What evidence were they able to gather back then?" Tony turned back to the screen, and Elly put the page up with their evidence log.

"Looks like we're going to have multiple opportunities here. We've got measurements of the stab wounds, speculative direction of entry, the medical examiner that ran the autopsy believes the attacker was left handed, and there are fibers and a couple hairs. There doesn't seem to be any indication of a DNA test being ran on the hairs."

"Wasn't available yet then," Dorney said, coming to stand behind Elly again as he looked over the evidence log up close. "This case was handled by Albany PD. I'm sure they'd be glad to hand over the file by now and get it out of their cold case lockers. How long was Stafford in Albany, again?" Dorney asked, looking to Elly for the answer.

"She grew up there, then moved away shortly after the girls were born because her parents thought it would be good for her. She moved back for two years in '84."

"And Jericho was killed in '86?" Dorney asked.

"Yep. Then it looks like Stafford booked it out of there, moving again. She's lived all over the place. Seemed to prefer larger cities. It's probably easier to get lost in the shuffle that way, and with a murder under her belt, the paranoia probably set in hard."

"Sounds like we need to get in touch with Albany PD."

"I'll give 'em a call now and see what they can do for us," Parke said, moving towards his desk.

"I'll get us all copies of her case file in print. The Albany PD has been digitalizing their cold case files as part of a huge nationwide project. The problem is that everything is scanned in, so I'm not sure how clear it's all going to come out. I'll do my best to clean it up if I need to," Elly said, already tapping and clicking away, a pen between his teeth and his foot bouncing under his desk.

"I'll start looking to see if I can find any connections between Jericho and Stafford," Dorney said, sitting down behind his computer. "Other than the, you know, big one… that… we already know. Other stuff. How they met, that kinda stuff." Tony raised an eyebrow at him, and Dorney nodded and sat down, shutting up. He'd come to learn that look well over the past month, and he knew it meant to stop rambling and work.

Tony sat at his desk and started in on the paperwork to officially start the new case, and the request forms for the case file to be logged into evidence along with everything that had been reviewed before. He couldn't wait to get Abby to run the hairs for DNA analysis. He hoped that it would match what they had on file for Stafford, and give them a solid piece of evidence to go off of.

An hour later, their information was starting to pile up. The Albany PD was going to send down their cold case file, and they were expected to have it by Tuesday. For the time being, Tony knew they were at a standstill. He got to his feet, stretched, and decided to send his team home to finish enjoying their weekend. He looked at the clock and saw that it read a little after midnight. He flipped off his desk lamp and picked up his stuff, glad that he was heading home to Jethro, no matter how excited he was about the case.

The wedding plans that they had decided on earlier that evening came back to him, and a giddy excitement ran through him. He got on the elevator with the rest of his team, and he turned to them.

"We decided something about the wedding finally!" he announced. "We want to do it outside!"

"Sounds like a step in the right direction!" Elly said with a smile.

"Tiff and I got married on the coast. It was a sweet little beach wedding with only like, maybe sixty people, good food, lots of drinks…"

"Sounds nice," Tony said as they got off the elevator.

"It was!" Parke shared as he headed off in the direction of his car.

Dorney and Elly stood with Tony a moment.

"Do you think you'll do a park or a resort, something like that?" Dorney asked.

"I don't know. Hadn't really thought of that. I know it's going to be really small. We both want it simple, and we don't want anyone there that doesn't mean a lot to us. I think all together, the list isn't much bigger than who was there at Easter."

Elly and Dorney smiled at each other, then back at Tony.

"Sounds great, man. Keep us up to date!" Elly said.

"Definitely," Tony said with a smile, then turned to start off towards where his car was parked. He and Jethro had taken to parking in the same far corner all the time so it wasn't so suspicious when they took their lunch breaks together. He pulled out of his space, passing Elly and Dorney who were still in the same place talking, and waved.

When he pulled into the drive at home, the familiar blue sedan that belonged to Fornell was parked on the road. Tony wondered what he was doing there so late on a Saturday. Usually if he came by, it was after a case during the week, or on Sunday's after he dropped Emily off and had to deal with Diane. He remembered that it was Emily's birthday, and nodded to himself in understanding.

He headed down to the basement as soon as he got his jacket hung up, his bag being dropped by the couch. He cast a look at the fireplace on the way, and frowned. It was finally too warm for a fire, being late May, and he missed the crackle he'd grown accustomed to greeting him.

The last few steps brought greetings from both men, and Tony's defenses rose as he realized Jethro looked stressed.

"Fornell, what have you done to my future husband? Last I left him, he was in a much better mood. _Much_ better," Tony said with a tease, grabbing a jar and coming to lean against the table next to Jethro, leaning down to give him a quick kiss.

"Go ahead and tell him, Tobias. You seem to be _really_ good at talking tonight." Tony turned and looked at Fornell anxiously.

"I said I'm sorry! I didn't realize she didn't know, and I didn't realize it was such a secret!"

"Oh, you didn't. Please tell me you didn't," Tony said, shaking his head. He looked back at Jethro. "He didn't, did he?"

"Diane asked me if I was coming over here after spending the day with her and the in-laws. The She-Devil likes to throw it back at me that Jethro and I commiserate about her. I said, and I quote, _'No, they're at a wedding tonight._' I realized what I had said, and unfortunately, so did she."

Tony reached out and rubbed Jethro's shoulder as he took a swig of the liquor in his jar, shaking his head.

"That's not all," Jethro said, shaking his head as well while glaring at the man across the table.

"She tried to get me to tell her who "they" entailed, and I told her that she wasn't getting it out of me, that she needed to ask Jethro," Tobias said, knocking back the rest of his jar.

"Ooo… tough call. On one hand, you don't wanna blab and piss us off by spilling the beans, on the other hand, now she's going to come find out for herself, which means the She-Devil will be trying to invade our little piece of paradise." Tony sat his glass down, and headed for the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Jethro asked.

"To lock the door!" Tony shouted over the stair railing, taking the steps two at a time.

"Don't forget the back door and the garage door!" Jethro yelled up the stairs.

"Hell, close the chimney while you're at it!" Fornell joked.

"Got it!" Tony yelled back.

Jethro continued to glare at Fornell as he refilled the jar he was drinking from. He looked at Tobias and put the lid on the bottle. "No more for you. I'm going to warn you now, you don't want to be spending the night in the guest room."

Tobias looked at him in confusion, and then it dawned on him. "Jesus, Jethro! I don't need that mental image!"

Jethro just shrugged, and took a sip of his bourbon. "You don't need to hear it either, so if you need coffee, go make some now."

"I'm good," Fornell said with a slight head shake. "I've only had one, which is _not_ enough after spending the day with them."

"What did Diane think of your present?" Jethro asked, taking back more of his bourbon as Tony came down the stairs.

"She _hates_ me right now. I definitely won this round!"

Tony refilled his jar, and smiled with a congratulatory nod at Fornell. "So you got the time off?" he asked.

"Yes, I did! Last week of July, my princess and I will be spending the week in Disney World!" Tony and Jethro shared a smile. "We're going to stay in the big castle and everything. Now that the house is paid off, there's a lot more I can do."

"I bet," Jethro said. Tony sat on a sawhorse next to him, his designated spot when Fornell was over.

"Even starting to put a little aside towards a car for her one day. I figure I've got six years until that catastrophe. If she drives anything like her mother, I think I'm going to get her an armored truck."

Jethro laughed and reached out for Tony's hand. Tony realized that Jethro had definitely had more than a couple of jars at that point, and he wondered how long Tobias had been there, and whether or not Jethro had started before or after his arrival. The hand in his was quite warm, and the glaze over Jethro's eyes was a dead give-away. When Jethro turned to smile at Tony, Tony poured another jar, realizing he needed to catch up. There was something in that smile that let Tony know Fornell would be leaving soon whether he wanted to or not.

"What happened with your case?" Jethro asked, looking at Tony curiously. Tony beamed.

"We have a match! An obvious connection, right place, right time… We did it! Just gotta wait for the evidence from the cold case lock up at Albany PD."

"That's great! I bet your guys are excited," Jethro said happily.

"What are you talking about?" Fornell asked.

Tony turned to him, anxious to show off his team's skills.

"We got this cold case back in March," he said, motioning between him and Jethro with his jar. "That case broke, and we were able to make the connections between it and another case, and we got answers for both. There's this woman locked up in a psych ward for trying to kill this girl about six years ago, and she confesses to all these crazy murders in her interviews with this shrink, but when they looked into them, none of them were real."

Fornell nodded, following the story.

"Well, I got this feeling that something was off in the session. So when I got my team, we started looking through the tapes, and the guys thought so too. We realized she's changing certain details in each of her confessions. Parke analyzed the videos, and Elly, Dorney and McGee designed this database. We're running it against all murder and attempted murder files in the areas that the nut has ever lived in during the time frames she's ever lived there, based on the similarities mentioned in her interviews, and the most likely changed details.

"We got a hit tonight with a 72% certainty, and looking at the file, it's _definitely_ her. No doubt at all. I'm hoping the hairs they have in evidence will be able to give us the DNA results we need to close another case."

Fornell looked at Tony with interest. "Your guys were able to pinpoint enough of that information to do that?"

"Yup! We've put in over a month's worth of work on this, but it's paying off! They're so great… so great."

Jethro swung Tony's hand a bit in encouragement, and Tony smiled back at him.

"We might have to poach them. Our behavior analyst guys never have time to work on the older stuff like that. If they have such success at this, we could really use their talents."

"Good luck with that," Tony said with a cocky smirk. "My team is mine, and they're staying right where they belong- with me."

"Time will tell!" Fornell said as he got to his feet with a smile. "Might need to borrow their technique at least. Sounds like it has a lot of potential and should be put to use."

"I'll let them know you think so," Tony said as he knocked back the rest of his glass.

"I'll leave you two to your night. Have fun," Fornell said with a smirk as he headed for the stairs. Tony raised an eyebrow at Jethro, who got to his feet with a smile and pulled Tony by the hand up the stairs after Fornell.

"Lock the door," Jethro said as he moved for the mantel, finally letting go of Tony's hand.

Tony got an excited chill down his back as he locked the front door behind Fornell. When he turned back to the living room, Jethro had lit the candles Tony had put on the mantel, and the one on the bookshelf. Tony watched as he turned off the floor lamp, and smiled broadly. It was rare that Jethro did anything about mood lighting, but Tony liked the way the candles flickered around the room in lieu of a fire in the fireplace.

When Jethro turned towards the small stereo system Tony had on the bookshelf though, Tony laughed.

"Hang on there, tiger! Let me do that before you hurt yourself, or break something," he said as he came up behind Jethro and reached over his shoulder to turn a light jazz CD on. Jethro turned around in his arms, and slipped his hands around Tony's neck. Tony smiled and leaned in immediately for a deep, tender kiss. They finally pulled back slightly, resting their foreheads on one another. Tony's hands went to Jethro's hips as they took a few steps into the room and danced in slow circles around each other, their bodies pressed together.

"I missed you," Jethro whispered against Tony's lips.

"I wasn't gone too long," Tony whispered back with a smile.

"Any time is too much time," Jethro said quietly, smiling back at Tony. "Wasn't done dancing with you tonight."

"Mmmm…" Tony murmured as he pulled Jethro closer to him, resting his head on his fiancé's shoulder. "I'm still not done."

They danced for another twenty minutes, Tony switching so that his arms were around Jethro's shoulders, the older man's arms around Tony's waist, pulling him so tightly against him that they could barely move. Tony didn't mind. It was no longer about the dancing, but simply being close.

"You've got too much clothes on," Jethro whispered into Tony's ear.

"Wanna fix that for me?" he asked quietly, not moving his head from where his temple was resting against Jethro's.

"Mmmhmmmm…" Jethro growled quietly as he nibbled a little on Tony's neck under his ear, making the younger man groan. Jethro slipped his hands around to Tony's stomach and up his chest until he reached the top button of Tony's shirt. He pulled away enough to begin unbuttoning it, and his lips found Tony's. They swapped a slow, sloppy kiss as Jethro's fingers unbuttoned all of Tony's buttons, shirt and pants, before reaching up and slipping Tony's shirt off his shoulders.

Tony's hands were under Jethro's tee, exploring the ridges of his back and stomach. Once his own shirt was removed, he reached to pull Jethro's over his head. They kissed their way through taking each other's pants off, pushing them to the floor and merely stepping out if them. Jethro wasted no time in reaching for Tony's cock, giving it long strokes, making Tony groan into the kiss and reach to knead Jethro's ass.

"What do you want, Jethro?" Tony asked breathily in his ear.

"I want that coffee table to hold us, but I don't think it's going to."

Tony snickered. "I think you're right."

"Think it will hold you?" Jethro asked, nipping Tony's throat and jaw between his words as his hands continued stroking Tony, who was panting heavily at that point.

"Not with what you do to me," Tony said, running his clipped nails down Jethro's back.

"Nuh-uh. Was thinking something else." Tony growled as Jethro started twisting his palm over the head of his cock, smearing the precum dripping there. "Wanna ride you hard and fast." Tony moaned loudly as Jethro's words, raw and rough, sent a new wave of heat rushing through him.

"Fuck the table, there's always the floor," Tony said, pulling Jethro towards the middle of the room, pushing the coffee table out of the way so they could be on the area rug. Jethro grabbed the lube they kept in the eye-glass case in the end table drawer. Tony took it from him while at the same time wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him in for a demanding kiss.

Jethro groaned and pulled Tony down on the floor, leaning him back against the rug and lying across his body. They let their tongues dance a couple of minutes longer, and while they did, Tony used the distraction to lube his fingers.

Jethro groaned when suddenly cold, slick digits began probing him. He moved to make it easier for Tony to reach, and his eyes rolled back into his head as Tony's fingers moved in and out of him, slicking him and stretching him. He began rocking back on them, loving the feeling of any part of Tony inside of him. A third finger joined the first two, and he couldn't take it anymore. He pulled off the fingers, and angled himself so that he pushed back on Tony's leaking cock. He felt the head press against him, and Tony moaned, reaching forward to swipe lube on his cock and hold it in place so Jethro could take him in.

Jethro crouched above Tony, taking his time lowering onto him, slowly, inch by inch. It made him bite his lip in both pain and pleasure, and Tony watched with fascination.

"Oh, fuck!" Jethro said as he suddenly sat heavily, slamming the last two inches into him, doing much more than simply brushing his prostate. The intense spike of pleasure that went up his spine made his hairs stand on end. He sat still, his head thrown back as he felt every inch of Tony deeply seated in him.

That's what he'd been craving all night. He was afraid Tony wouldn't make it home, and he'd never find the satisfaction he needed, but here it was. He was connected to Tony in a way no one else was able to. He finally shifted, pushing up off the floor, a foot on each side of Tony's waist. He propped his hands on his knees, and pushed up, then slammed back down making both him and Tony groan and gasp.

Tony lay pinned on the floor, completely at the mercy of the man on top of him. He watched Jethro's facial expressions as he rose and fell again, and the ecstasy he saw there made him shiver. It still amazed him that he was able to bring Jethro to that place. He suddenly gasped, his breath getting caught in his chest as Jethro started a bouncing ride, fucking himself on him in a rhythm-less pace. The only half-coherent thought he could form was how sexy Jethro looked riding him while his free cock slapped his stomach with each bounce. He watched Jethro as his own hips started bucking up to meet the bounces with thrusts.

"Yeah, that's it," Jethro said quietly. "You feel so good, Tony. So fucking incredible."

"No," Tony said breathlessly as he shook his head wildly. "_You_ feel incredible. So tight, so warm, so deep… God so deep… fuck!" Tony gasped with a particularly sharp landing as he was thrusting up.

"Wanna cum all over you," Jethro groaned.

"Yes! Do it! Cum all over me! I want to fill you," Tony practically shouted, feeling the beginning tingles of his orgasm starting to gather at the base of his spine.

A sudden loud roar came from Jethro, and Tony saw the older man stroking himself in quick jerks, then felt the warm strings of liquid landing all over his chest and stomach. At the same time, the muscles of Jethro's ass constricted around his cock as he kept trying to thrust into it. It was like a vice, and it stroked his orgasm out of him. He filled Jethro's ass as promised, cum running out from around him as his erection finally subsided.

Jethro was still sitting on him a few minutes later as they came out of their daze, and Tony felt calloused fingers running through the cum on his stomach, drawing patterns in it. It took a moment for him to open his eyes, but when he did, he saw Jethro's sated smile. He reached forward, taking Jethro's hand and brought his fingers to his lips, licking them clean.

"Damn it! Why do I love that so much?" Jethro said as he collapsed forward onto Tony, snuggling into the mess and not caring. Tony's arms wrapped around him as he arched his hips and slid out of his lover.

Jethro fell asleep on top of Tony, and Tony decided to let him sleep for a while. It had been a long day, and it was after 0300. It wasn't long though until Tony slipped off into sleep as well, arms securely around the man he loved, and blissfully trapped under his body.


	3. Chapter 3

_A flash of the past, a little reveling in the present, and confronting the future in this one. Hope you enjoy! :D Thanks a million for the awesome reviews and faves so far! Y'all rock!_

As It Seems: Chapter Three

Tony woke up to Jethro running his hand through his hair. It was raining out, and Jethro looked down at Tony's eyes opening slightly as he lay in his arms.

"What time is it?" Tony whispered, afraid to break the peaceful way the rain sounded pounding on their roof and beating against their windows.

"A little after eight. Go back to sleep- you didn't get much last night."

"Why aren't you sleeping?" Tony asked, pulling the blanket up around him as he snuggled in closer to Jethro. They hadn't slept on the floor comfortably for too long before Tony's back had woken him at 0400.

"Just listening to the rain," he said with a voice that was both happy and sad, and it made Tony swim a little further towards consciousness.

"And thinking about something," he said with a soothing but knowing tone that invited conversation but didn't demand it.

Jethro ran his fingers through Tony's hair again, smiling at his lover's ability to read him, and really anybody, so well.

"Thinkin' about Mike," he decided to admit. "And you and I."

Tony shifted slightly, but knew if he moved too much, Jethro wouldn't have the right angle to keep stroking his hair, and it felt too good to do anything that might make it stop.

"I used to love when it rained. After spending so much time in the desert, coming home to summer rains was incredible. But the night Mike died…"

Tony's eyes closed, and he swallowed as he realized what was going through his lover's mind.

"It was raining," Tony whispered. He could feel Jethro nod, but it took a long couple of minutes before anything else was said.

"The first time it rained this spring, you were here, and I remember waking up and thinking that if I could make more memories with you as I listened to it rain, I might be able to learn to love it again like I used to."

That sentiment hit Tony somewhere deep inside, and he wondered how he had earned such an incredible place of honor in his man's life that he would think so highly of him as to challenge the power of a storm. He suddenly got an idea. He got to his feet, pulling Jethro out of bed by the hand, a surprised, "Umpff!" being earned from the older man. Tony only smiled when Jethro asked what they were doing, and then threw sweatpants at his lover.

Jethro took them and slipped them on, and Tony slipped on a pair of his pajama pants. He then grabbed Jethro's hand again, and led him quickly down the stairs and through the kitchen. Tony opened the back door, and pulled Jethro out onto the deck into the rain with him.

"Are you crazy? We're gonna get soaked!" Jethro said with a chuckle.

"Why yes, yes we are," Tony said, pulling Jethro into one of their slow dance embraces, with Tony's arms wrapped around Jethro's neck, and Jethro's hands around his waist as their foreheads fell together.

The rain fell in a steady shower on them, drenching them through and through in a minute's time. They stood there, breathing each other in, and Jethro understood why Tony had brought him out there with him. The weather had been getting warmer. The rain was refreshing and not at all shocking. It tapped along their bodies, their heads, and down their faces as it washed away tainted memories, and replaced them with the way it felt to hold each other's warm, firm bodies against one another safely and protectively.

Jethro's hands ran up Tony's bare back, feeling the streams of rain running down along his skin. Tony's fingers played with the ends of Jethro's hairs as the rain slicked off of them at the points. Jethro got lost in the sensation of touch- the rain touching him in taps and streams, the way Tony's fingers felt in his hair while his forehead slid against his and his breath hit his face, the way his own hands felt as they slid up and down Tony's body, and the way their torsos and chests slid against one another in their short movements. Jethro's arms suddenly tightened around Tony, pulling him flush against his body, and his lips found Tony's as they kissed passionately.

Tony's fingers slid up into Jethro's hair, pulling him in tighter, kissing him deeper. Thunder clapped loudly in the sky above them, rolling off into the distance as a long rumble. Jethro felt the sound echoing in him as he kissed Tony. The storm's winds picked up, whipping through the trees in their yard and the neighbors' yards, the sound rushing around them in a way that fed the senses of power and urgency as the two men devoured one another.

A sudden crack of lightning made both of them jump as it came too close for comfort, and startled them out of their reverie. Their hands were clasped as they looked with wide eyes into the back yard and around them to try to find out if anything had been hit. The dark clouds rolled overhead at a menacing pace, but they simply watched on as Jethro moved behind Tony to hold him close, his arms coming to cross over Tony's chest, his head resting on Tony's shoulder.

Tony smiled broadly, his hands coming up to hold Jethro's forearms as he leaned back into the embrace. Even with the rain running down his face and the storm passing around them, he felt at complete peace in the middle of the whirlwind. It felt right.

Jethro had always been his calm in the storm. When life was at its most insane, throwing the worst at Tony, Jethro could ground him, reminding him of where he stood and why. He knew that he could count on his partner to be there for him, and he had known that since the day they had met. However, there was something solid in him over the past two months that he hadn't felt before. Jethro gave him the courage to trust the core of inner strength that he found he'd been too afraid to tap into. Now, he was centered within it, and he wondered how he'd ever lived any other way.

Jethro felt the storm raging around him, but there was no storm within. He was right where he needed to be, standing in the warm rain with his lover. Tony had brought him back to life, and as he looked around them, it was like he was finally in his rightful place in the universe, amidst the natural chaos that living entailed.

"Thank you, Tony," Jethro whispered against Tony's ear.

Tony lifted one of Jethro's hands to his mouth and kissed it before replacing it around him securely. They stared out into the rain until Tony shivered. Jethro leaned in, and whispered into Tony's ear.

"Come inside with me."

Tony turned his head to look over into Jethro's eyes, and smiled at the spark he saw there. They stepped back into the house, and Jethro held up his hand, telling Tony to stand still while he crossed the kitchen and into the laundry room. There were towels and linens in the dryer from a load he'd tossed in the night before, and he pulled a couple of the towels out so they could dry themselves. When he turned around, Tony was holding up his pants to drop into the washing machine with a smirk.

Jethro took in the way Tony's body glistened in dampness, and he raised an eyebrow. Tony reached out for one of the towels, and Jethro kept staring.

"Do I get one of those?" he asked with a smirk.

"Haven't decided yet."

"I'm getting a little cold."

"I think I can fix that."

"Oh? How do you-"

Jethro dropped the towels and pulled Tony towards him so quickly that their bodies smacked together. His hand ran up into Tony's hair as he kissed him hard, taking Tony's breath away. His other hand freed Tony's waist and reached to stroke his cock until it was hard and Tony was whimpering. Tony reached for Jethro's sweats, pushing them down, but they were soaking wet and wouldn't go far.

"Couch! Now!" Jethro growled, turning Tony to shoo him along. He pulled his pants off and tossed them into the washer, then grabbed the towels, running one across his body as he followed Tony out of the room. He tossed the other one to Tony who stood by the couch, still dripping slightly. He caught it and ran it over his head to dry his hair, but he didn't make it to the rest of his body before Jethro had pulled him close again.

Their tongues slid around each other in a passionate game of twists and turns, and Tony stroked Jethro now that he had access. They moaned into each other's mouths, and finally, Jethro turned Tony around so that he was facing the back of the couch. Tony knelt up on it, his hands going to the backrest, and Jethro grabbed the tube of lube they had used the night before.

Tony felt liquid running between his crack, and looked over his shoulder to find Jethro with the bottle upturned, letting the lube run straight down. He then closed the tube, tossed it on the couch, and slid his cock up and down between Tony's cheeks, smearing the liquid all over both of them. Tony groaned and turned back to brace himself on the couch. A minute later, he felt Jethro's head pushing into him.

Jethro sighed in relief at being close enough finally. He always felt a surge of relief when he entered Tony. It was the best feeling in the world, and it felt like he was coming home. He slid into him until they were pressed as closely together as possible, and then bent over his lover's back, kissing his shoulders. He put his hands on the couch next to Tony's as his hips began sliding forward and back, slowly in and out.

Tony's sounds of pleasure spurred him on, and he began thrusting a little faster and harder, but not too fast. He had the chance to take his time. They weren't on call, they didn't have cases waiting on them, and they had nothing scheduled to do. Today was theirs, and he was going to make sure they used it wisely. He let his lips go back to Tony's shoulders, kissing him and nibbling on him, enjoying the taste of his skin. He licked up Tony's shoulder and then his neck until he was suckling on that spot under Tony's ear that he loved. His hips kept moving slowly, but Tony started pushing back, needing more.

He obliged, thrusting faster, harder, until they were both breathing heavily as their bodies slapped together. Tony started stroking himself as he pushed back with every thrust, and soon, they were gasping for breath. Jethro let one hand reach down to grab the towel sitting next to them and wedged it between Tony and the couch. They'd had a bitch of a time getting the last stain out, and he wasn't about to go through that again. All Tony could do was nod. A minute later and Tony was stiffening as he came.

Jethro loved when Tony came first. It meant that his ass tightened around him so snugly it almost hurt. He groaned, relishing in the feeling as he tried to continue pushing in and out of the vice like grip. He tried to hold off, but after only a minute, he came into Tony's limp body and fell forward, trapping him there. Once they both caught their breath, he pulled out, using the sticky towel Tony held out to him to clean them both up. He sat the towel next to the couch, and then pulled Tony down onto the cushions with them. Tony was still a pliable doll in his post orgasmic haze, and Jethro smiled as he pulled the quilt from the back of the couch over them so that they could doze together.

-NCIS—AIS—NCIS—AIS—NCIS-

Dorneget was sitting in front of his computer, trying to decide if he really wanted to hit send on the email he had written up. He'd worked on it for days, trying to get it just right, and last night, he had gotten home after the great breakthrough at the office and deleted everything. What he had in front of him was much more assertive than he was used to being with his family, but he was proud of his accomplishments, and he wanted them to see that he was doing just fine without them.

Re-reading it for the hundredth time, he took a breath and hit send. He took another deep breath, and it caught in his chest.

_What did I just do? That sounds way too aggressive. That's not me! Is it? Is that me? Is that what I want to be? I guess that's not aggressive. Is that aggressive?_

He finally exhaled, and pulled his phone out to text Elly.

_I just sent the email to my brother. I think I'm having a heart attack. _

He was relieved when a text came back almost immediately.

_Whoa there! Calm down, it's okay! What did you say? _

_Basically that I'm doing well, and that I'm on a team now, and we've made a great breakthrough that we think will help us close not only our case but many others. I don't know. I think it sounds kinda haughty. _

_Wanna forward it to me? I can let you know if you sounded like a snotball._

_That would be great! Sending now. _

Dorney sat back and waited for a response. Five minutes later, he got a text back.

_Hell no! That was great! Go Ned!_

_Really? It wasn't too… uppity? _

_Not at all. You said what you said confidently, but left out the sarcastic jerky shit that his email had. You're totally the bigger man right now!_

Dorney smiled, sitting back and sighing with relief. Elly had become a surprising ally since joining the team. They were all helping him work on various things, but more than anyone, Elly had a way of reminding him of what he was already good at, and how he could use those talents as he worked on developing the rest. He'd been supportive, and he was easy to talk to. It hadn't taken long for them to swap life stories.

_Thanks, Elly. He really was a prick in his email. He doesn't actually care how I'm doing, just wants to rub it in that he's making all this money, and I don't know how to get it through to him that I don't care about that kind of stuff. It just doesn't matter to me._

_Guys like that usually don't learn that money can't buy happiness until they're divorced, alone, and about to lose everything. _

_Sad, but true._

_What else are you doing with your Sunday other than pissing off your family by being happy?_

_So far I've managed to do laundry, and I'll consider that a successful day. _

_Haha! Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm thinking about hitting the range if you wanna join._

_When are you going?_

_About an hour. You in?_

_Sure. Why not? Am I meeting you there?_

_I can get you along the way if you want. _

_Cool. I'll see you then. Let me know when you head out. _

He looked at his phone in surprise. He hadn't planned on doing anything but lazing around the house today, but it sounded good to spend some time with someone. He was getting a little more comfortable with his weapon, but it wasn't his favorite thing in the world. However, he had stopped picking it up so gingerly that he was afraid it going to discharge on its own when he dropped it. Both Tony and Ziva were helping him, but he still got a little nervous with Tony so close to him, and Ziva wasn't the most patient person.

Heading for his room, he stripped out of the scrubby clothes he had worn to the laundromat, and he headed for the shower. He thought about his talk with Elly in the garage last night about his brother's email. He'd pulled it up on his phone, and Elly had been pissed as he read it. It made Dorney smile to think about it. He felt like he had allies now; people in his corner. They were the kinds of people he had needed in his life.

He wasn't sure why Tony had decided to bring him onto his team, but he was glad he had. Parke had been a patient teacher that helped him maneuver through social interactions better than any of the shrinks he had ever worked with. Tony had been guiding him through the different things a true field agent needed to know. Elly was helping him with his tech skills, fighting techniques, and was there to listen, anytime, day or night. McGee had invited him in on some of his and Elly's powwows, and he had even braved some time in the gym and range with Ziva.

The past month had gone by in a blur, but as he thought about the email he had just sent, he realized just how much he was changing. He got out of the shower and got dressed in something he hoped was appropriate for the range, and tried to control his hair. It was unruly on a good day, but he it was what he had. He looked around his room for his phone, trying to remember where he sat it, and remembered it was on the bathroom sink. He grabbed it, and then wrestled with his lockbox as he got his gun and his badge.

He looked at the box in frustration, and Tony's words rang through his head. _If it doesn't work for you, change it. Find a way to get the job done that _does_ work for you._

"Gotta get a different box." He shook his head and sat down at his laptop to find a new one. He was looking through them when his phone chimed.

_On my way_

_I'll be looking for you in a few_

He looked at the detailed information on the next box on the list, and decided it sounded like it would work a lot better for him. A few minutes later, it was ordered, and he locked his apartment door behind him as he left.

As soon as he stepped outside of his apartment building, Elly pulled up. He smiled as he got in.

"Hello," he said as he closed the door and reached for the seatbelt.

"Hey, hey!" Elly answered, waiting until he heard Dorney's belt click before pulling out of the lot. "You ready for a fun-filled hour of shooting stuff?" He chuckled, knowing he was about to get a groan from the man next to him. Dorney didn't let him down. The groan was accompanied by a sigh.

"I hate this part of the job. I mean, as kids, we all had toy guns and water guns, but knowing that this isn't a toy takes all of the fun out of it. The idea that I might one day have to point it at an actual person, and do more than scare the shit out of them, scares the shit out of me!"

Elly looked at Dorney half playfully and half seriously. "Ned, I've seen you hold your gun. I've yet to have the shit scared out of me."

"Thanks! Ass," Dorney said with a laugh, glad to hear that Elly was laughing with him. He still had a hard time with the bro code and what constituted an appropriate name calling.

"You know what you need to do? You said you did drama in high school, college, all that, right?" Elly turned to Dorney and got the nod. "You need to _act_ like a badass when holding your gun. Consider it a role you're playing. Do that for a while, act the hell out of it, and it will become more natural for you."

Dorney considered that for a minute. "That might actually work."

"Of course it will, because I'm a genius." Elly looked over at Dorney again, and saw the look he was getting. They both busted out laughing. Elly wasn't sure why he felt so much more confident around his team than he did with the rest of the people in his life, but he figured it had something to do with their trust level with one another. He had found something in this group of people that he had never been able to find elsewhere; community, friendship, a place to fit in- a family.

He'd never felt like he belonged as well as he did here. People usually only wanted him around because of what they needed from him. He loved his dad, his stepmom and his brother, but they were so disconnected from one another. He had nothing in common with his dad and brother, and his stepmom had done her best to be a mother to a boy who wouldn't let her replace his real mom. The people in his life now were a chosen family, and he cherished them.

He was grateful for some time with Dorney today. He had called Parke and invited him to join them, but he was stuck going to some political fundraiser with Tiffany. That was okay though. He'd spent a lot of time with the couple over the past month, and he kind of needed to be around someone else who was single. Everyone around him had the perfect relationships, and he wasn't in a place to do that. He was still learning to be happy with what he had.

Watching Tony and Gibbs plan their wedding, Abby and McGee house hunt, Ziva and Dion open a restaurant together, and Palmer and Breena get married was great, and he was happy for them, but he was suffering from third wheel-itis, and he was glad to get away from all the adoring looks and loving voices. It was nice to have someone to just joke with that wasn't going to have to take a call or send a text to check in.

"Just ordered a new lockbox," Dorney said.

"Oh? Special occasion?" Elly smirked.

"I'm tired of fighting with the one I have now. I can just see the day it wins. I'll walk up to you or Tony on a scene, and just hold it out with my tail tucked between my legs."

Elly burst out laughing. "Sorry! Sorry! I definitely just pictured you with a tail and a lockbox that you'd taken a hammer to."

"I don't know, I think I could work a tail," Dorney said with a smirk that matched the one on his friend's face.

"That depends on the type of tail I guess," Elly said. "Not a monkey tail, or lion's tail. You need something big and bushy. Maybe a fox tail or a horse tail."

Dorney laughed as they pulled into the parking lot of the range.

"Okay, we need to stop talking about you getting tail. I mean, getting a tail, excuse me."

"Starting to they have the same likelihood of ever happening," Dorney said as he got out of the car.

"Wait- ever happening, or ever happening _again?_" Elly asked, suddenly very afraid that Dorney was a virgin.

"Ever again!" Dorney corrected himself. "Again."

"Whew! I was about to say, we got bigger fish to fry than getting you ready for MTAC. I was about to have to make it my personal mission to get you laid."

Dorney chuckled as they walked into the building to check in.

"No, seriously. I was going to offer myself up as wingman extraordinaire. I've always been better in that role anyway."

"Not so sure if you'd want to be my wingman…" Dorney said, knowing that they were going into uncharted territory. He knew that Tony knew he was gay, but he wasn't sure if the rest of the team did. He knew they had no problem with Tony and Gibbs' relationship, but helping you pick up a date was a little different than going to a wedding.

"Come on, you couldn't be any worse than my friend Bill in college. He couldn't pick up a girl to save his life. I'd start talking to the chick he was interested in, Bill would come up to join us, and I'd feed him into the conversation, set it up just perfectly for him, back out, and ten minutes later he'd be sitting alone at the bar. I'd ask what happened, and he would just shrug."

"Sounds like Bill and I would get along pretty great," Dorney said with a chuckle.

"He's still single, but I don't think he's quite your type. He only got crazier and crazier as we got older. We're trying to keep you from going down that road. Now, if Michael was still single, I could totally see hooking the two of you up, but alas, he's not spoken for. Kind of a shame. I _really_ don't like his partner. Total jackass. Don't know how they got together, and I don't expect it to last very long now that they're living together." Elly was holding the door for Dorney to come through and saw the relieved look on his face.

"Oh! You thought I didn't know. My bad. Yeah, I know, it's cool, whatever."

Dorney followed him back. "So which rumor mill did you pick it up from?" Dorny asked with a nervous chuckle.

"You? Well, not intentionally. When we had Easter dinner at Boss's house, we went to go leave, and you were looking all wide-eyed out into the yard where they were snuggling, and said something about how you wanted that. No biggie."

"Ahhh. I was so out of it that night! I didn't remember that at all until this moment."

"Yeah, you hit the scotch pretty hard. I still can't believe how loud you snore!" Elly joked. Dorney laughed too, and they got set up at the back counter. "No, seriously. I could hear you from your couch, in my sleep. I probably could have gone out and slept in my car, and you would have still been clearly hearable. You snore like a backo or jackhammer or something." Dorney couldn't stop laughing. "You know how you'll never forget what a modem connecting sounds like? That will be what I'm like with your snoring. I'm going to hear it under a desk in the bullpen one day, and I'm going to be like, Welp, I guess Dorney slept here last night. Must've had a falling out with the old man."

Dorney was doubled over laughing, and Elly chuckled, grinning ear to ear. "Come on, man. Load up."

Dorney went through the motions of loading the clip into his gun, not thinking too hard for once as he did. He was relaxed and realized he was actually having fun. Elly already had his weapon loaded and was aiming at the target when Dorney turned to see how far he was. He watched for a minute, and then it was over. The clip was empty, and every shot left bullet holes right where they were supposed to be.

Elly nodded as he replaced his clip, and looked at Dorney. He raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was waiting for. "You ready to channel your inner badass?" he asked.

Dorney took a deep breath and nodded. "I think so."

"Nope. Can't just think so, gotta know so. Do know so?"

"Not at all."

Elly chuckled. "Okay. So talk to me. You like to talk. What scares you so much about this?"

Dorney looked down the line at his target sheet, and shook his head a little as he thought. "Right now," he started slowly, looking back at Elly. "That's a piece of paper. That's not what I'd actually be pointing at. When the time comes, it's going to be a person, a human being, on the other end of that barrel. Not paper. I don't know if I can do it. I mean, maybe I could maim someone, but actually…" he shook his head, looking away in embarrassment and frustration.

"Ned, look at me." Elly's soft command demanded Dorney's attention, and he looked up, his eyes meeting Elly's dark blue. "When the times comes, not _if,_ but _when the times comes_, you'll be able to do it. It won't be easy, and it is going to hurt like hell, but you'll do it. You'll do it because you'll be protecting yourself, or someone you care about, or someone innocent that deserves to be saved."

Elly saw the heavy rise and fall of Dorney's chest, and he felt like he suddenly understood him a little better, and respected the heart and care he had.

"We practice so that when the time comes, if we can take something other than a kill shot, we make sure we get it right. When a shot to the shoulder will work instead of a shot to the head, we need to make sure we can make that shot, not just shoot willy nilly. If blowing out some guy's knee will work, or his hand, wouldn't you much rather take that shot? Let him live to see real justice?"

Dorney nodded.

"Then that's what you need to practice. But if the time comes that it has to be a kill shot, you have to be ready, willing and able. If it's Greg, or Tony, or me, you _will_ take the shot without a second thought. If some douchebag has some kid, you're going to take it. When you're in that position, instinct kicks in, and nothing else matters other than ending that moment, and protecting the people you do this job to protect."

Dorney watched Elly's face and body language, a constant practice that he'd been taught by Parke. He saw the way Elly's normally over-energetic body calmed to a complete still. He saw the determined look in his eyes and saw the set to his jaw. He wasn't "Elly" at that moment, but Elijah Critten, Senior Field Agent, and Dorney swallowed.

"My first time firing my gun at a person was back in Minnesota. I had to do double duty the first six months, so I was doing beat work and working on the Finance Taskforce. Guy holds up a convenience store. I was in the library behind it, actually dropping off a book of my own while my partner was grabbing coffee for us at this little shop across the street from the store. We were on our lunch break, and the car had been parked right out in front of the coffee shop. The guy comes out of the store, and my partner is getting ready to get in the car, when he turns towards the racket and realizes what's going on. He draws his weapon, guy grabs a woman walking by, holds a gun to her head, and here I come around the side of the building, watching this showdown.

"I'm afraid to startle the guy because I don't want him to do something drastic, so I start to come around on his right side to where he can see me, and I announce myself. The guy I was working with that week was an idiot. We passed partners around since we rotated out with the taskforce, and it was never the same guy… anyway. He has his weapon raised, and starts moving towards the guy like he's going to be some badass. The guy turns the gun on him.

"It was reflex. I was able to get him in the shoulder as he raised his arm and let the woman go. It was a split second decision when the moment was just right. I had to consider the woman in his arms, the speed in which he was moving, what angle I could get him, and how to keep not only my partner, but my own ass safe.

"When that time comes, thought takes over. Feelings... well they take a back seat. Yeah, we feel panic, we feel pressure, we feel certainty, uncertainty, fear, anger, but it all gets pushed into the back, and our actions come from our thoughts. You will always be guided by your heart, Ned. You're just that kind of person. Reflexively, you're going to shoot to maim, not kill, but if that moment comes, your heart will protect the people you love, that you care about, that you're protecting.

"You've been sitting on people in protection for a while now. You know what you would have done if you had to. Your scores suck because you're afraid of having to one day do this for real, but without the clarity adrenaline gives you in that moment, you're simply overfeeling this, overthinking it. When you're doing it for real, you're not going to have time to consider the life of the person you're aiming at- you're going to consider the life they're holding hostage, the life they're threatening to take."

Dorney watched Elly as he talked, absorbing every word, every movement. He understood what he meant. He felt numb, but then he thought about Elly joking with him in the car about acting the part. He turned towards his target, and he imagined himself in a scenario.

He set the scene in his mind. Kids playing in a playground, man in front of him with a gun getting ready to start taking them out one by one. He felt the rush of adrenaline in him, and he raised his arms, pointing his weapon at the target. He first went for the shoulder, then the chest, then the head, and back to the chest. When he lowered his gun, the clip now empty, he stood back and stared at the shot holes. The target moved forward on its line, and he felt Elly's hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

Dorney looked at him and back at the target. Every hole was exactly where the shot had been intended to go.

"He'd be dead, but they'd be alive," he whispered.

"Yeah, that's the goal," Elly said, his voice still quiet as he tried to figure out what was going on in the mind of the man in front of him.

All Dorney could do was nod.

"That's the job, Ned. Do you think you can handle it?" Elly was starting to get really worried about the expression on Dorney's face.

When Dorney's grey eyes looked up to meet his, he was relieved.

"Yeah, I think I can, and that's what scares me." He looked back at his target, and Elly bit his lower lip as he worried about him.


	4. As It Seems: Chapter Four

_It's taking everything in me not to write monster sized chapters that I won't be able to keep up with. I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am! :)_

As It Seems: Chapter Four

Monday morning sunshine drifted through the window, and Jethro rolled over to pull Tony against him tightly, unwilling to think about getting up, leaving the bed, and starting the work week. He'd gotten used to Tony's alarm rousing them instead of the smell of coffee rather easily. He loved waking up with Tony. On the rare occasion when Tony had been called out in the night, leaving Jethro to wake up by himself, the older man had been a bear to deal with for the entire day.

It was actually what instigated Tony's first official "decaf" call out, letting him know he was crossing the line. A few minutes together in the elevator with Tony tearing him a new one had put him in his place, and in response, all he could do was wrap Tony in his arms. They'd stayed that way much longer than they should have, and when both men left the elevator, the looks their teams gave them earned eye rolls and glares from both of them.

When it was obvious that both of their moods had improved though, Tony had to ward off IMs from the other side of the bullpen that were laced with insinuations, and then even got one from Abby asking for details of their rendezvous in the elevator. He sent her back a fairly honest response that doused the rumors of a sexual escapade up the ladder back to Tim and Ziva, and then Critten and Parke. Elly had intentionally not told Dorney that they had found out there was only talking going on, enjoying the expression on Dorney's face every time he looked up at Tony.

Their teams were working well together, and both of them were happy. However, no matter how great work was, Jethro still preferred lying in bed with his fiancé, detached from it all. He breathed Tony in, loving the smell of his soap that was still strong on him from their late shower the night before to remove the evidence of a long day of lovemaking around the house. He loved the way Tony's firm arms came around his even as he slept, instinctively holding him close in return.

_This is what life is supposed to be like,_ he thought. _Waking up together, warm and close, feeling like nothing could go wrong. _

The alarm started beeping next to them and he growled. Tony reached one hand out to smack the alarm, and then the arm fell back into position. He had learned weeks ago that Jethro needed two snoozes worth of morning snuggles in order to keep the decaf-growlies away, and he gladly obliged. They stayed just like that with Jethro nuzzling his neck and breathing him in for eight minutes, and then when the second snooze buzzed, he hit it and rolled over.

Jethro loved that sleepy glazed look on Tony's eyes first thing in the morning. He smiled and leaned in to kiss him good morning. Their voices were hushed as they spoke, afraid to ruin the perfection of waking up together with actually waking up.

"Morning," Jethro whispered.

"Good morning, sexy," Tony whispered back, a lopsided grin on his face.

Jethro reached up and brushed Tony's hair back from his forehead. It was sticking up in a funny way that made Jethro smile, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Gonna have to jump in the shower to get it to do anything today," Tony said softly before clearing the sleep from his throat.

"I dunno; I kinda like it like this," Jethro said with a smile.

"I'm not leaving the house with my hair looking like this," Tony said with a quiet chuckle.

"Then maybe you shouldn't leave the house," Jethro said, leaning in to kiss him deeply. Tony responded immediately, but a minute later pulled back.

"As much as I would love to play hooky with you today, I have a case busting wide open, and I can't wait to go brag about my guys to Vance."

"Yeah. I guess it would be pretty obvious if we both called off on the same day," Jethro said with a mock serious nod.

"Ya think?" Tony asked, pretending to consider it. "I don't know. I think we could pull it off." The second snooze went off and Jethro growled, glaring in the general direction of the nightstand. "One day Jethro, when we have a minute, we're going to sit down and plan it so that we use some of this stockpile of vacation time we have on late mornings. Maybe pick a couple of random days where we don't come in until ten or something, and then we'll sleep in late together, or even better, don't sleep in but stay in bed."

"I like the sound of that," Jethro said, leaning in to kiss Tony quickly before rolling out of bed.

Tony reached over and grabbed his phone, turning the alarm completely off and checking for texts or important emails. Jethro beat him into the bathroom like he did every morning, so he stretched and yawned, then picked out his wardrobe for the day. Jethro left the bathroom and Tony headed in, his hand running across Jethro's waist on the way by. They smiled as they went about their morning. Tony jumped in the shower for a minute to wet down his hair and refresh, and by time he was back in the bedroom, Jethro was sitting a mug of coffee on the dresser and pulling his belt through his pants.

Tony took in the view, comforted by its growing familiarity and the way the sight still made him yearn to be back in the positions he'd be in the day before. He was startled out of his revelry as Jethro's phone rang. He started buttoning his shirt as he listened.

"Gibbs," he answered. "Whoa, there, Malek! Hold on! Slow down! Say that again." Jethro looked to Tony. "Okay! Okay, got it. I'll be there in ten. Just- just stay there! And calm Dina down will ya?"

"What's going on? Malek alright?" he asked, his heart beating wildly.

"He and the girls went down the road from the safe house for groceries. When they came back, the place had been tossed. They got the hell out of there and are at the rendezvous point. I gotta go."

"Okay. You want me to go with you?"

"No. Just tell Tim and Ziva to be on standby if they get there before I get back." He leaned in and kissed Tony as he slipped his jacket on. "Love you," he said, then grabbed his coffee before heading out the door and down the stairs.

"Love you, too!" Tony hollered after him. "Stay in one piece!"

"That's the plan!" Jethro said, the front door closing behind him.

"Yeah," Tony said under his breath. "That's the plan. We all know how well things work out around here when we try to plan something."

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Gibbs headed for Rosslyn Station, hoping that the crowd was thick enough with commuters to hide his friends. He was glad that they had kept them in a safe house close enough that he could get to them if needed. He tried to focus on the situation at hand. He thought about what it could possibly be that someone would think they had with them. When they came to the States, the only thing they had was a small duffel bag each that Dina and Talia had managed to grab before jetting. Malek had come with even less, just the satchel on his back as he ran.

He followed the pieces in his mind. Since Malek had to run and leave behind all of this possessions, perhaps he left enough to lead the wrong people in the Iraqi village to him. Since he never came back to wherever he was staying for his things, it would be pretty obvious he was gone, but they had worked hard at planting the bug in peoples' ears that he was killed in the blast. If Talia and Dina's things were half gone, then it would look more like they had run.

He thought about Talia's more versatile talents. She had managed to spy on a lot of people in her time with more discretion than most agents he knew. She was a devout Muslim woman, and she believed in education and legal equality between the genders. She was discreet about it, working behind the scenes and under the table to educate young women, and as of yet, she had not been caught.

Malek had travelled with her for years. After her family was killed in an attack, he had taken her under his wing, being her unchallenged male guardian in the streets. He was her brother's best friend, and it had become a natural succession. Dina, with a natural talent for blending into the background, was her closest friend, by her side through her grief, and together, the trio had formed an inseparable bond.

Malek had been working with one of the many underground revolutions at the time, unsure of his future, but firm in his beliefs. In the wake of the attack, Talia and Dina had asked to join him in whatever ways possible, and when he discovered their talent for espionage, they began reaching out to greater allies with the knowledge they had gleaned together. Those allies contracted them, and eventually, so did the U.S. government.

When Gibbs' mission in Kabul was thrown, he learned to trust them quickly, and since then, he had kept a chain of contacts to them in case any of them ever needed each other. He wondered who it was that was looking for them, but he figured after so many years of working in such a way, the options were many. It could be related to the information that Malek had gathered from the man whose children were being used to smuggle weapons into the country, or it could be one of Talia's contacts with the women's education movements being compromised. It could be due to a dozen different reasons, and he had to pinpoint where the threat was coming from.

He parked his car and ran towards the station, his phone to his ear.

"What now, Gibbs?" Vance asked on the other end of the line.

"The Arlington apartment was just compromised."

"Aw, hell. Are you putting your team on it?"

"As soon as I get back to the office with our guests. I'm picking them up at the rendezvous point now."

Gibbs scanned the crowd of people from the staircase to see if he could locate his friends. The throng of people around him was great cover for three people trying to hide out, but it made things harder on him. He wandered through the corridor, wading through the masses as he hung up with Vance and searched.

He finally located them all sitting together on a bench. Malek was comforting Dina, and he had to wonder how such a normally unflappable woman could suddenly look so fragile. He watched her closely, looking for clues. He had never seen her come anywhere close to this shaken. He saw Talia and Malek exchange a concerned glance with one another, and then Malek spotted him coming towards them.

Malek helped Dina to her feet, and Talia wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Gibbs," Talia began. "We are glad to see you. Can we go, please?"

Gibbs nodded, meeting Talia's eyes. She was trying to tell him something with that glance, but all he was able to understand was that she was very frightened and concerned. Something wasn't right, and he felt her anxiety as his own.

"I'm parked right outside the entrance. Let's go." They made their way back through the station and up the stairs against the crowd. They all crowded into the car, Malek sitting up front with Gibbs while Talia consoled Dina in the back seat. They pulled off towards the Navy Yard, and Gibbs looked at the women behind him before turning to Malek. "What happened?"

Malek started giving him a rundown of their morning. "We have yet to get over the jetlag completely. Our days are running into the nights, and our mornings begin at about three o'clock in the morning. We decided we would go to the store while it was not busy, hoping to be able to slip in and out without attracting too much attention to ourselves and avoid the people in the building. There are less people in the stores then, and it is feels a little less dangerous to go out.

"When we returned home, the door to the apartment was unlocked, and upon entering, we found that all of our stuff had been gone through. We took a quick look around, trying to take a visual inventory without touching anything, and then got out of there as quickly as possible."

Gibbs nodded slowly, and then stopped at a light. His eyes searched the rearview mirror to try to meet Dina's. Her eyes met his, and then she looked down. He knew that something wasn't being said, but Malek and Talia looked just as confused as he felt. Once they got to the Navy Yard, he took the three of them straight up to the conference room. He grabbed a cup of the disgusting coffee that was waiting there for them, and then threw it away after the first drink.

"I'm going to get a cup of real coffee. Anyone want anything?" Talia and Malek agreed to coffee, and Dina declined. "Why don't you come with me, Dina? If you don't want coffee, maybe they have something else you would like. It's going to be a long day, you might as well have something. C'mon." He was surprised to find her jump at the chance to leave the other two. He shrugged at Malek and Talia as Dina led the way into the hallway.

Gibbs noticed McGee and Ziva over the railing sitting impatiently at their desks. Once he got to the opening of their cubicles, he stopped. "I need you two to go process the Arlington safe house. Someone tossed it this morning."

"Boss?" McGee asked, getting to his feet. "Everyone okay?"

"Yeah, McGee. Just find me something good." He led Dina to the elevator and got on with her before his agents could gather their belongings and follow. As soon as the doors closed though, he flipped the switch.

"Dina, what's wrong?" he asked, taking the direct approach. He saw her trembling as she tried to find the words.

"I have done something foolish."

Gibbs stared at her, waiting for her to continue. He thought he was going to have to pull it out of her, but she finally took a deep breath and started talking.

"I have been keeping a journal since Talia taught me to write when I was eighteen years old. It has always been dangerous, but it was something I felt I needed to do. I may never be able to write a book, but I could write my story. I always burnt them when I filled the pages, but with the laws changing in recent years, I have stopped. I keep them with me, in my bag. There are three books full and part of a fourth. They are missing. I did not see them on the bed with the other things where the intruder emptied my bag."

Gibbs watched her shivering turn into a hard shaking tremble as she continued slowly, carefully choosing her words.

"Two months ago, we were performing in a private party with multiple high ranking officials in attendance. I had slipped away to find the information that we needed, when I was interrupted by one of the men at the party. He…"

Gibbs began worrying more about the state Dina was in now than the trouble they would be dealing with when she finished her story. She was shaking violently, and he recognized the wild lost look in her eyes as the look of many he'd seen come home from rough combat when they slipped into a flashback. He wanted to comfort her in some way, but he was worried that doing so may trigger a violent reaction considering the path he feared her story was taking.

"He…" she tried again, still unable to force herself to speak the words.

"Dina, did he hurt you?" Gibbs asked quietly.

She nodded. "Yes, but not as badly as I hurt him. I was taken by surprise Gibbs. After he… there was a letter opener on the desk in the office, and I… I took it, and I…"

Gibbs saw a cold calm descend over the woman in front of him, and he felt a slight chill run down his back at the way she suddenly turned all emotion off.

"After he forced himself on me, I killed him with that dull blade. I pushed it into his frozen heart."

Gibbs nodded slowly.

"I got the information that we were looking for, and I gathered myself. In all of our missions, if any of us had to take a life, we admitted it to one another so as to keep each other safe. I could not tell Talia. I could not tell Malek. They do not know what that… creature… did to me. My journal was the only one who knew until now.

"I had never written about our missions in the past. I had never written of the lives we have had to take and the information we have searched for and obtained. That night was eating me alive, Gibbs. It was consuming my soul. I had to put it somewhere, or else it would have remained inside of me. That book contains every detail of that night. We will _never_ be able to return home now, or we will be killed. I have sentenced us all to a life in exile from our families and our friends, and if the events of that evening reach the wrong people, they will all suffer because of our actions being made public. They will hold our families responsible for what _we did._"

Gibbs looked into the passion-bright and distraught eyes of the woman in front of him. He knew that there was no doubt to what she was saying. They had managed to keep their cover for many years, and this would prevent them from ever doing their work again. He knew he could get the three of them a safe place to live in the States for the rest of their lives based on their situation and the work they had done for the government, but the safety of all those that harbored them and helped them back in Iraq would be in jeopardy.

"Dina, how long ago were you attacked?"

Dina's eyes closed, and Gibbs noticed her demeanor soften. "It was the fifteenth of March."

Gibbs sighed. "Right now we have three priorities. The first, is we have to get you checked out. My friend Doctor Mallard is in this building. Would you agree to let him examine you?"

Dina looked at Gibbs with frightened eyes.

"I trust him with my life, Dina. We have been friends a long time. We need to make sure you are not injured, pregnant, or that he gave you anything." Gibbs witnessed her change back into the fragile shaking mass that she had been just a couple of minutes before.

"If you say that I can trust him, that would help put my mind at ease."

Gibbs gave her the slightest smile. "The second priority is telling Malek and Talia what happened. They are your friends, and they will stand by you, you have to know that."

Dina's eyes started flooding and she began crying in earnest. "I should have told them when it happened, but I was…"

"You were in shock. There's nothing to be ashamed of. They will understand."

She shook her head. "Because of me, and my cowardice, they have no idea what we are dealing with!"

"No!" Gibbs said in a low, fervent voice, taking the smallest step in her direction. "Not cowardice! Dina, no one should ever go through what you went through. You are incredibly brave and strong. Be strong one more time, and let them help you."

Dina took a heaving breath, and nodded once.

"The third priority is that we have to find that book. Let's take care of talking to Ducky, and then we'll tackle the rest."

"Ducky?"

"That's what we called Doctor Mallard, since a mallard is a kind of duck." The odd reference made the frantic woman stop and think, and it brought her back to the rational world. Gibbs turned and flipped the switch for the elevator, pressing the button for autopsy before she could change her mind.

Gibbs walked into autopsy with Dina, and Ducky looked up from his file. "Good morning, Jethro! And who are you my dear?"

She nodded, and looked up to Gibbs for support.

"Duck, we have a situation. This is Dina."

"Ahh! It is my pleasure to meet you, Dina. Any friend of Jethro's, is a friend of mine. What can I do for you?" Ducky used his gentlest voice, noticing Gibbs' tentative pose.

"Duck, Dina was assaulted two months ago. I know there's no chance for a full rape kit, but will you give her a check up?"

"Oh, my dear woman. I will do what I can." Dina nodded, unable to not feel comfortable with the doctor's compassionate gaze. "I understand that this is of a sensitive nature, but because of our difference in gender, I need to bring in another woman to be present with you while I do my examination. Have you ever met our forensic scientist, Abby Scuito?"

Dina shook her head no, and looked at Gibbs in a panic.

"It's okay, Dina. I trust Abby. I'll go get her." Ducky headed towards the door with him.

"I'll be right back my dear. Please, have a seat."

Jethro turned to Ducky with a raised eyebrow, but the older man shooed him into the elevator outside of the double doors to the room.

"How long do you think it's going to take with Dina?"

"Roughly an hour. This isn't something that can be rushed. Considering my gender, and her violation, coupled with unfamiliar surroundings, the nature of the situation is going to be, at very least, unsettling for her. Should we call her friend to be with her? Talia, isn't it?"

"Not yet Duck. There's a lot Talia doesn't know yet. Dina has a rough day ahead of her."

"Ahh. I think I'm starting to get the picture, or at least the part I need to concern myself with for the time being."

The two men walked into Abby's lab to discover Tony and his team working with Abby to explain the program they had developed, and why they were having her run such an old hair sample through the database.

"That is so totally awesome! You guys are geniuses! I'll get on your hair sample as soon as it gets here."

"Thanks, Abby! You're the best!" Tony said, and then realized they weren't alone.

Tony smiled, but then he realized Ducky looked distraught, and he looked at Jethro with concern.

"Abby, Ducky needs you in the lab," Gibbs broke in. "He has to examine Dina, and he needs another woman present."

"Dina? She's one of your friends from that op a couple of months ago, right?" she asked confused. "But why is Ducky examining her? Is she sick?" She turned to Ducky, and Tony looked at Gibbs with a crestfallen face as he realized what Gibbs was asking Abby to do. Gibbs nodded, and looked at Abby. It suddenly sunk in and Abby's face fell. She nodded, swallowing hard and turned to Ducky.

"Are you ready, my dear?" Ducky asked.

Abby took a deep breath. She hated doing these kinds of examinations, but she had been present through a few of them at that point. She put her game face on, pushed back her lingering fear of autopsy, and nodded.

"Yeah, Ducky. Let's go." She didn't stop to hug the guys, she just headed for the door, and Ducky squeezed Jethro's shoulder as he passed.

"Hey guys?" Tony asked. "Can you give us a few?"

Elly, Parke and Dorney had been watching the scene unfold curiously, none of them really understanding what was going on, but trying desperately to get a handle on it via body language.

"Sure thing, Boss. Let's head upstairs, guys." Critten said quietly as he shut down his laptop and pulled his bag over his shoulder.

Tony watched them go out the door, and then met Jethro's eyes. "What happened?"

"She was attacked during an information op two months ago. She's a tough kid. Took the bastard out, but she hasn't told the others. She did however write about it, and that notebook is now in the wrong hands. It was taken during a break-in this morning. Ziva and McGee are combing the apartment now."

"Shit, Jethro. I'm sorry." Jethro nodded and sighed. "Let me know what I can do to help," Tony added.

"I will, Tony. Thanks."

Tony nodded. "How are you holding up?"

"I've been worse. Just worried about Dina for now. I told Talia and Malek that I was going for coffee. I should probably go check in with Dina and then head out there."

"Care if I tag along? Could use a bit of caffeinating myself."

Jethro smiled and nodded his head towards the door. He and Tony walked towards the lab together, and Tony stopped outside, not sure if the exam had begun. Dina was still sitting up on the table though in plain sight, so they entered.

Tony watched as Jethro approached Dina and spoke quietly to her. She nodded to him when he asked if she was okay there alone with Abby and Ducky, and Tony saw the slight relief in Jethro's shoulders. This was never an easy thing, but being present for an examination was not something either of them ever wanted to go through.

Tony was impressed with how quiet, gentle and reassuring Abby's voice was as she promised to stay with her through the entire examination, and he was glad Dina responded well to her. As Dina laid down on the table, he could see her grab Abby's hand, and Jethro turned around to leave them alone. He met Tony right inside the door, and they walked out together.

"If she hadn't already killed the son of a bitch that raped her…" Jethro mumbled under his breath.

Tony's eyebrows arched in surprise, and then he shrugged, knowing that he shouldn't be shocked. From what he had heard, Dina was highly resourceful when she needed to be.

"Whoever has that journal right now knows what they were doing that night, and what happened. None of them will ever be able to go back home, which I suspected, but from how Dina sounded a little bit ago, they think they may be able to. Even without that, their friends, contacts and sympathizers will be in jeopardy now."

"Are they sure it wasn't just a normal burglary?" Tony asked hopefully.

"Come on, Tony. How many burglars do you know that steal diaries?" Jethro asked as they got into the elevator.

"Hey! Hey! Don't get all decaffed on me, just trying to think positive." Tony raised an eyebrow at Jethro who sighed.

"Yeah, I know," Jethro said, which was a much of an apology as Tony had ever gotten when the smart ass boss came out.

"So, not only is Dina getting a rape exam today, but she has to tell them that she's put them all in danger by writing about it."

"Not only that, but the fact that she and Talia can write as well as they do goes to show how long they've been at it. They work with the Women's Education Movement, and they've maintained a low enough profile to go unnoticed, but a lot of the teachers in the movement have been coming up dead, sometimes put on display for their supposed crimes. There's a chance it could lead up the chain."

They ordered their coffee from the barista and Gibbs got some for Malek and Talia. Tony was glad to help carry the drinks in, hoping to get a chance to say hello to them. They were halfway back to the building when Jethro's phone rang. Tony took on an extra coffee so he could answer it and listened closely as they stood outside in the early summer breeze.

"Okay. Thanks, McGee. We'll see ya when you get here." He hung up on Tim, and then took the coffee back from Tony. "They are finishing up at the site. There's not a lot to go off of, but he thinks he may have gotten a few good prints."

Tony nodded his approval, and they started back in the building.

"Are you going to tell Malek and Talia where Dina is and why?" Tony asked behind elevator doors.

"The where, yes. The why, no. That's her story to tell." Tony saw the frown deepening on Jethro's face, and he reached out to flip the switch. Jethro raised an eyebrow, and Tony leaned in for a simple kiss, then pulled back, flipping the switch again. He smiled at Jethro who was now grinning and shaking his head. The elevator stopped on their floor, and before the doors opened, Tony nudged him with his elbow.

"Come on, hubby!" he cajoled, knowing Jethro was rolling his eyes behind him dramatically. They headed for the conference room, and Tony greeted them with a smile.

"Tony! It is good to see you my friend!" Malek answered, taking Tony's hand in both of his as he shook it with a warm smile. Tony smiled back.

"I wish it were under better circumstances. Just wanted to come up and say hello while I had the moment. Gibbs told me you were here."

"Are you not going to help with the situation?" Talia asked, coming to stand with the men.

"Actually, I'm in charge of my own team now. A lot has changed since the last time we saw one another," he said, looking to Jethro for some support as he slipped his left hand in his pocket to hide his ring. It was suddenly very obvious how much of the past few months they'd been left out of.

"We'll need to do dinner when this is all over to catch you up," Jethro suggested. "Right now, we need to concentrate on what is going on with this mess, and make sure everyone stays safe."

"Where is Dina?" Talia asked cautiously, giving Jethro a confused look that Tony noticed held the slightest warning behind it.

"She is with Dr. Mallard. She'll be up soon."

"Why is she with your doctor, Gibbs?" Malek added with a little more protectiveness than Talia.

"She needs to tell you that herself when she is able." His slightly sad eyes threw all three of the other people in the room. Tony knew Jethro considered these people his friends, and it was strange to see him take down that wall with anyone outside of the team. The other two seemed to know the depth of that look, and Tony watched Jethro as he sat down at the conference table. Talia and Malek also dropped into chairs, suddenly much more somber than before. Tony gave Jethro's shoulder a little squeeze on the way by, excusing himself.

He walked into the hallway, shaking his head as he closed the door. A part of him didn't want to be on the other side of that door anymore knowing what they were about to go through, but there was a part of him that did. He wanted to have Jethro's back, he wanted to have their friends' backs, but he knew that it was going to get messy, and he had his own situation to worry about. He had to let go.


	5. Chapter 5

_There's a bit of tech-speak in this one. Don't worry, it's not crucial ;) Much love for the reviews!_

As It Seems: Chapter Five

As Tony began descending the stairs to the bullpen, he heard a voice say his name and stopped. Looking over, Vance met his gaze.

"Got time to go over this?" he asked.

"Now would probably be the best time actually," Tony said. "Let me grab my file."

Vance nodded, and turned back towards his office while Tony headed for his desk. He picked up his file, and then turned to Elly.

"You're with me. Time to show Vance what we've done," he said with a smile. Elly looked back and forth between Dorneget and Parke with wide eyes, then stood up, grabbing his laptop and case file. "And you two," he said, addressing Parke and Dorney, "Had better behave yourselves while we're gone. I don't want to come back to anyone glued to anything."

"They're not you, Tony. They don't come to work armed with a bottle of superglue," Tim suddenly said over the partition.

"Then I haven't trained them well enough yet, McGlued," Tony said with a smirk.

Tim rolled his eyes. "Where's Gibbs?" he asked.

"What makes you think I know where he is?" Tony asked, moving through the bullpen. Tim met him at the bottom of the MTAC stairs and gave Tony a serious look, shaking his head.

"Now's not the time, Tony. Where is he?"

"What did you find, McGee?" Tony asked quietly, concerned by the look on Tim's face.

"Not enough. We're going to be busy for a while. Where's Gibbs."

It was a demand, not a question, and Tony nodded up the stairs. "Conference room." Tim turned to go, but Tony's voice stopped him. "Hey, Tim?"

McGee turned to look at him, confused by the use of his first name and the tone of Tony's voice.

"Be careful. They're his friends."

Tim nodded solemnly, silently promising Tony he would.

Elly watched the exchange between them, and felt the tension rising. Tim charged up the stairs with an even firmer resolve, and Elly and Tony walked slowly up behind him.

"You okay, Boss?" Elly asked quietly.

Tony smiled sadly at him. "_I_ am."

Elly understood what wasn't being said and nodded. He'd seen Tony's concern when Gibbs was hitting a rough case before, and he knew what it looked like. He was brought back to the situation at hand as he walked through the door to Vance's office. He'd rarely been in here, and it always put him on edge.

"Agent DiNozzo, Agent Critten," Vance said as he nodded for them to join him at the conference table.

"Director," Elly acknowledged with a nod. They walked over to the table together and pulled out chairs. Elly immediately opened his laptop to link it with the television on the wall so he could show him the results of their search.

"Sounds like you've had a breakthrough in your hunt for information on Melinda Stafford," Vance began. "I have to say, at first I hoped this wouldn't come to anything, but from what I hear, this could be one of the best uses of your time."

Tony smiled at Elly, proud of their accomplishments. He saw the nervous look on his face, and tried not to chuckle. He knew that Vance approved of Elly and his role on the team, but he hadn't told Elly to what extent. He thought he might need to in order to keep him from fidgeting across the room every time they came into the office together.

"Tell me how this works," Vance said.

"With the first two murders we saw in the Kenthauser case, we had videotape of a sort of sideways confession to her shrink. The details had been changed. She states in the sessions that the women she killed were her daughters, but in reality, they were her _grand_daughters. We watched the video-"

"Over, and over, and over, and over…" Elly added, earning a smirk from Tony.

"-and gathered all of the specific details she provided. There were many that were spot on, but there were a few that had been skewed just enough to keep her lie straight under the heavy sedation. These details were also large enough that it kept those that investigated her claims far from the truth. She admits to killing her daughters? Heh, they're obviously still alive when checked on. So to the doctors this is no longer a confession, but a delusion of grandeur."

"She confesses to multiple murders in these sessions," Elly said, leaning forward on the table to try to keep from fidgeting too much. "We also watched each of those."

"Over and over and over and over," Tony added with a grin. Elly rolled his eyes and smiled, but continued.

"We gathered all of the details of each of the murders, and we've created a database to cross-reference them with the National Cold Case Database that's being formed. With Greg's background in profiling, we were able to isolate the details that she would most likely be changing. Based on the initial case's interviews, we know that she changes the relationship of her victims. She also changes location. She _doesn't_ however change any of the details of the actual murder. If she drowned them, she's giving explicit details of the drowning to her psychiatrist."

"One of the details we're finding she focuses on is the shock in the eyes of the people she's killing. They don't expect it, don't know it's coming, and she always mentions the eye color," Tony said, picking up the explanation. "That's helpful. The most demented part though, is what is making me think she's not _quite_ as crazy as she sounds."

Vance looked at him with slight exasperation, afraid they were going to try to overturn the insanity plea. Tony knew that was what he was thinking, and cut him off at the pass.

"Don't get me wrong, she's nuts, and she needs to stay just where she's at, but she's not killing the people directly responsible for her giving her daughters up for adoption. She's killing the children in their lives. She's making them feel the pain she felt by having her kids taken away from her. I had wondered about it, and Parke confirmed it for me when he said the same thing."

"This is Natalie Jericho," Elly said, beaming her picture to the plasma. "Based on the info we've gathered, we started running the cross-reference this weekend between our database of details and the national database. We had a hit within forty-eight hours. Natalie Jericho was the daughter of one of the nurses involved with Stafford's delivery. She was killed by a brutal stabbing to the abdomen, slaying her unborn child as well."

Vance got up and went to stand in front of the plasma, leaning back on the conference table. Elly and Tony moved to stand next to him, Elly with his laptop in his arms propped so he could put other information on the screen.

"The details that flagged in the system were that the location Stafford lived in at the time coincides with where Jericho was murdered, the relationship to her is directly related to the birth of her daughters, she was the child of someone she claimed to kill-"

Tony cut Elly off. "Stafford had stated in one of the videoed sessions that she had murdered a nurse at the first hospital she was at. Everyone assumed that meant the first _institution_ she had been placed in, but we've come to understand that it's the hospital the situation _really_ started at, where she was forced to give her daughters up."

Vance turned to cock an eyebrow at him, then looked back at the screen. "What do you have for physical evidence?"

Tony gave him a slight shrug. "There is apparently a hair in the cold case file we're having sent down from Albany. We have the DNA from Melinda Stafford, and we're hoping to run them against one another. There were some fibers, but the chances of us linking those are long gone. The angle of entry made the M.E. who did the autopsy believe that it was done left handed, and we have the measurements of the knife wounds. What we need, is to get a location for the knife. If she had someplace she liked to get rid of the weapon, we may be able to add that information to the database and see if anyone had turned in a knife found in the area."

"There was no DNA report listed on the file," Elly said, bringing up the evidence log from the file. "It was too early back then for an extensive DNA panel to be run like we run today for every case. Jericho died in '86, and forensic DNA was so new that I doubt they did anything beyond take a microscope to it."

"It sounds to me like you may have just solved a twenty-five year cold case based off of a combination of criminal profiling and technological know-how," Vance said.

"The scans are still running," Elly said. "It's going to take days for it to go through the forty years' worth of cold case files we have it set to run through from the various locations we could pinpoint Stafford living in. The syntax written is very specifically running each and every case through a series of "if this, then that" scenarios based on the psychological profiling we did the on the videos."

Vance turned back to Tony as he interjected. "And in her sessions, she cops to seven murders. We now know about three of them if you include Jericho. We think one of them might be the description of the attack they caught her in at the pool in Chicago back in 2006. She becomes rather agitated during that description, and she gets angry and violent, which is completely different from the calm and cold demeanor she takes on during the other descriptions."

Tony shot Elly a quick glance, and then went back to watching Vance's rather stunned expression.

"This is very impressive. I can't help but feel like this could have extensive uses down the line. Using profiling techniques to input a case into a database to run past the National Cold Case Database… it definitely feels like we're onto something big."

"I was thinking about this last night after something Tony said on Saturday," Elly said tentatively, looking at Tony for permission, and saw the slight nod to go ahead. Vance turned to him as well, and he sat the laptop down, clicking a few buttons to bring up three things on the plasma. He turned back around and started explaining. Tony noticed that all of the fidgeting stopped, and he smiled. He knew this Elly, and knew he was in his element.

"When we did the video analysis, we had an advantage. We were able to read body language, voice inflection, things like that. Not all cases are going to have anything close to that, but many have interview or interrogation tapes, and they all have case files. Compiling these things, analyzing them, extrapolating the data, and then entering it within what we have created could be used to create our own version of a cold case database.

"It would be much more extensive than what we're getting in the national database, and it would take a lot of time, but we've essentially found a way here to digitalize a psychological profile. In our situation, we're able to run these specific parameters by the files we need because they are measurable in the national database. There's location, relationship, things like that. There are other things though like, key phrases or keywords, that would make more sense for military use that we wouldn't see a lot of in the national database. Those could help direct where we look for internal connections.

"Right now, the rate our cold cases are being entered into the national database is excruciating. We have two people doing it, and most of the information we're offering is simply scanned in sheets for now until they can go back over them and actually enter the information off of the scanned sheets into the required fields.

"We spend a lot of time on cold cases, going over the information looking for new leads. If we're going through the information anyway, we could be entering it into the system, and being the investigators, not data entry techs, we know the pertinent details that need to be searchable. Once we enter it into the system, while we're following our own leads, the computer could be running the search through cold case files in chosen districts and jurisdictions.

"With McGee's help, I'm sure we could make the modifications needed to the database we've created so that it could feed information back and forth smoothly between the information the data entry cold case techs are putting into the National Cold Case Database. I think it could help us when reviewing the cases too. So many times we're looking over a file and nothing is really absorbing, but when we're interacting with it in some way, it helps our thought processes flow."

Tony was beaming at his agent, proud as hell of him for taking the opportunity to pitch them both such a bold proposition.

"You're saying we can modify our database to make cold cases a little less boring, and give them a shot to be bounced off of one another technologically, while improving on our entry process with the NCCD requirements," Tony restated to make sure he was understanding correctly.

"Yeah, essentially. A few minor tweaks, the addition of about a hundred drop down menus to help with the search syntax, but yeah. We could not only quadruple the amount of cases that are being entered into the NCCD, but enter tons more information than what you can currently search for, and at the same time it would create an in-house database that would be exchangeable with the rest of the alphabet."

"Is this something you would be able to do while maintaining your current close rate in the field?" Vance asked. "We need you there, and McGee. Your priority has to remain being SFAs for your teams."

"Definitely. It may take another several months to modify the database, but look what we've been able to do with just six weeks. We've created it, implemented it, and are already on the verge of closing a twenty-seven year old case." Elly's eyes wouldn't veer from Vance's. He was excited to see the approval in them, and as Vance nodded slowly, he turned back to his laptop with a smile. "This is something like what it would look like, only much more in depth." He brought their attention to the screen, leaning back against the table with the laptop in his arm.

"This is an actual cold case file I've been assigned. You fill out the basic information over here in the database. Then, you'd type in the notes from the original agent, and you'd use this highlight tool to highlight the parts you find most important: key phrases, sentences, details you feel other cases might be able to cross-reference with. Behind the scenes, those are placed onto this spreadsheet which becomes the basis for all searches down the road.

"So, if I wanted to search for similar stabbings with bone-handled knives where drugs are involved, I go to this database, and I can use keywords drugs, stabbings, bone-handled knives, and it will search, providing this case as a possibility because those are the words I've highlighted from the case file notes. You can also break it down with the normal search syntax tools. Time frames, location, gender and race, those kinds of things, will be options in a series of drop down tools to allow for quicker searches.

"The same kind of highlight tool can be used for a psychological profile, and it would mark it as such. If there are interviews, they can be transcribed, and those details will simply be highlighted, and a second spreadsheet would contain that information. We can also have set so that the search runs just the evidentiary profile, psychological profile, or both."

Tony watched the screen in front of him. He wasn't so excited about having to do the data entry on every cold case for probably the rest of his career, but he definitely saw the benefits to it. He looked over at Elly and then Vance. "Right now, when we have to search for a case, we're just as likely to find information through a Google search as we would from the NCIS database. It's outdated, and not nearly as in-depth as this is suggesting we could make it. And with 300 cold case files and climbing for the past ten years alone, and budget cuts eliminating the actual Cold Case team, I think this would be worth the time to pursue."

Elly smiled at him, grateful for the support. Tony watched as he tried not to fidget, and looked to Vance for a reading on what he was thinking. "What do you think, Director? Can we tackle this?"

Vance nodded slowly, turning to Elly. "Write it up for me, Agent Critten. Take your team's current caseload, get it programmed, and find out how to connect it to the NCCD. We'll give it a good test run, and then take it from there." Elly nodded emphatically, biting his lower lip.

"Not a problem. I can definitely do that. It's going to take some time though."

"I expect it to. We need this to be thorough. Take months if that's what you need. Document every step of the way. If we can make this succeed, we can start offering our process to other organizations, and not only expand on a critical piece of our technology, but we may be able to get funding back for our cold case team. This is good work."

"Thank you, sir," Elly said, trying to hold still while stealing a look at Tony who gave him two thumbs up behind Vance's back. "I'm going to start getting an outline together before the Jericho file gets here or we get a case. Excuse me."

Vance nodded, and Elly clicked a few buttons on his laptop to disconnect from the plasma, and then left the room. Tony watched Vance watch Elly leave with a smile, and was concerned when the smile was turned on him.

"He's coming into his own nicely," Vance said. "I was really worried when your team started looking into this that it was going to go somewhere messy, and with the cases you're working on being outside of NCIS jurisdiction, I was hesitant to let you go out on that fine line. You're going to want to cover your asses and pull in the FBI when you go after Stafford for any other murders you find."

"I was talking about the case with Agent Fornell this weekend, and I'm sure he'd love to get involved with not only the case but the database," Tony said, and then a thought occurred to him. "Critten has a lot of special talents, and I'm extremely lucky to have him. One of the things I've been wondering is whether or not he would be a good candidate for interagency cooperation. He doesn't have that alphabet angst yet that we all come to know and love. He connected really well with FBI Agent Galto when Malcom died, and I know they've exchanged communication a few times since then. If we're going to share the technology, that would probably be a good segue."

Vance looked at him through slightly squinted eyes. "If you repeat this outside of this room, I'll deny it to the grave, but I'm really glad you've moved into a lead position. Your team is really taking off. I never would have expected this from Agent Critten so soon, and being able to naturally step in just now and explain it so persuasively was incredible." He started to walk towards his desk, but stopped and turned back to Tony. "You know, I actually had a normal conversation with Agent Dorneget this week? He didn't stick his foot in his mouth once. That might be even more impressive."

Tony chuckled and Vance grinned.

"Parke's been working with him on his social awkwardness. His profiling during the review of the video sessions has been invaluable," Tony said. "That's something else he's been working with Dorneget on, and I think Ned might actually end up taking some classes in it. He minored in psyche and drama, and it suits him. I think he's going to fit in just fine where he's at. I got his range scores sent to me this morning from a trip to the range he and Critten took yesterday, and I don't know what Elly did, but they were damn near perfect."

"That's a huge leap from what we've been hearing," Vance said with wide eyes. "His range scores have had me a little more than worried."

"Yeah, me too. I haven't had a chance to ask Critten about it yet, but I need to."

"Let me think about what to do with the interagency thing. In the meantime, keep me up to date on how things are going. Any word on how bad things are with Gibbs' case?" Vance moved to his desk, and Tony followed.

"They're bad. I don't have all the details, but I have a feeling we're going to be standing in this week if something major happens."

"Probably. I hate to say it, but your team has more talent and expertise than Balboa's team, even with all their seniority. They're good agents, but when it comes to high profile cases, I'd rather send yours out."

Tony blinked hard and nodded, unsure of what to think of the compliments he'd received in the past few minutes. "Thank you, Director- I think."

Vance chuckled.

Tony considered what he was about to say, and then moved closer to the desk. "I do think we need to be careful not to step on any toes until we're clear of any possible repercussions that Simmons might try to take after it becomes public that Jethro and I are getting married. We don't need any more enemies."

Vance looked up at Tony, and nodded thoughtfully. "True. I have to consider what's best for the agency though, and if your team fits a case better, I may have to make that call."

"Yes, but if what's best for the agency is that we are able to stay together to continue the progress and work we're doing, I will understand my team having to take a back seat while Balboa's goes out."

"Understand or prefer?" Vance asked.

"That's situational."

"I understand the sensitivity of our situation. I won't put your team in harm's way."

"Thank you."

"How are the wedding plans going, anyway?"

Tony groaned and plopped down in the armchair across from Vance's desk, making him laugh. "I think about it, and consider jumping off a nice tall building."

"That bad, huh?"

"We know that it's going to be outdoors, and it's going to be very small. That's about it. And _that_ was just decided this weekend. The push is on though, and we're feeling it, or at least I am."

"Ms. Scuito giving you a hard time with it?" he asked, thinking about how he'd witnessed her barraging him with questions as she hopped around the bullpen one night when it was just Tony and Gibbs left on the floor.

"Ohhhh, yeah. Jethro is going to talk to her though, so hopefully she'll lighten up a little. McGee is trying to keep things under control for me from the sidelines, but he can only intervene so much."

"Jackie was a bridezilla," Vance said with a smirk, and Tony laughed. "Had to have everything perfect, but in the end, watching her walk up that aisle, and the way she smiled, it was all worth it. When we were dancing later, I asked her if everything had worked out how she wanted it, and I'll never forget what she told me. She said, 'Yes, it's been the perfect way to celebrate the most important day in my life.'"

Tony smiled. He'd come to enjoy these little personal talks with Vance, and he was surprised at that. He thought about the night he realized he wanted to marry Jethro, and the vision of the two of them standing together, looking into his eyes as they slipped the bands onto one another's fingers, flooded his memory.

"I know it will all be worth it. Just need to survive the planning first." Tony got to his feet. "Gotta get going. I'll keep you in the loop."

"Let me know if you want me to get Jackie to plan your wedding," Vance joked.

Tony laughed. "Just what every man wants to hear, I have a bridezilla standing by!"

He left the office with a bright smile, and nodded at Pam on the way by. As he walked along the railing, he looked over to see Parke and Dorney gathered around Critten's desk. He came down the stairs and joined them.

"I take it Elly told you the good news?" They all looked up at him with matching smiles.

"Yeah! That's fantastic! He was asking us for some input." Parke was standing on one side of Elly, closest to the aisle, and Dorney had wedged himself on the other side between the wall and Elly's desk chair. He bent down and murmured something to Elly as he pointed to the screen, and Elly nodded.

"Definitely," Elly whispered to himself, then bit his lower lip as he worked.

"While we have the chance," Tony directed, "I want you to pull all of your cold cases and get them in a prioritized order for entry. That doesn't mean you're going to stop working on them, but if you have one with a lot of case notes, type them up in a document as you go along so that way when the database is ready, you can just copy paste them into it. Let's get into the habit now of doing that with our cases. You guys are brilliant, and you're revolutionizing how we're doing cold cases."

Parke nodded and clasped Elly on the shoulder. "Congrats man! This was all you!"

"Like hell it was!" Elly said with happy wide eyes. "We _all_ sat through hours of video, and McGee, Ned and I have _all_ spent hours in front of our computers writing the programs we needed to do this with and keep it secure. This has been the definition of a team effort. I just figured out what's next."

Tony smiled at Elly from behind his desk. He was glad Vance had encouraged him to give Elly his chance to shine, because he was doing an incredible job as SFA. He was innovative, supportive of the team, and had a natural leadership that had blossomed when confidence had been shown in him. His decision to take Elly to his meeting with Vance had been split-second, but he knew that Elly could explain the database better than he could, and he hoped that Elly knew that's why he was brought in.

Pulling out his own stack of cold cases, he began shuffling through them for the ones he wanted to see entered into the database first. He opened one to read it over, then set it aside. Two more ended up in the pile before he found one that he thought would be good for the first trial. It had three pages of case notes from various people that had worked on the case over the years, and he began a document, typing up the notes.

Halfway through the second page, he looked up to see that Elly and Dorney were talking softly, Dorney still at his side as they went through the possible drop downs they wanted to add. He smiled, glad that they had gotten so close, and then he remembered what Vance had said about Dorney having a normal conversation with him. He glanced at Parke and smiled.

"Almost noon, Greg," he said.

Parke looked at the clock in the corner of his computer with a smile. Any minute now, Tony's cell phone would ring with a call from Shane to check in. Shane was often in the middle of the park for days on end, but every Monday at noon he called Tony for a security check-in before heading out into the field after their weekly planning meeting.

Tony had witnessed Parke relaxing more and more over the past month since he knew his brother was safe. He had gotten more comfortable asking questions in the field when he didn't know something, trusting that Tony would tell him and not leave him hanging. There were still times where Tony saw he was trying to figure things out on his own, and sometimes he let him, and others he would step in. He knew that came from a long history of not having anyone to ask, not just his few months with Kathy.

Tony went back to typing up the case notes, and at exactly noon, his phone rang. He answered it, Parke already at the side of his desk. "DiNozzo." He looked up at him with a smile.

"Heya, Tony! How's it going?" Shane greeted him.

"Hey, Shane! Fine here. Everything good?"

"Yeah! Getting results already on the transplants, so life is good!"

"Nice! Any new people this week in your park?" He asked.

"Yeah, two. Got names for you when you're ready."

Tony turned to his computer and wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder as he brought up the background search tool. "Go ahead."

"Preston Mooney, that's M-O-O-N-E-Y," Shane said quietly. "And Bianca Borne, B-O-R-N-E."

"Sounds good. I've got them running now."

"Cool. Phil says hey and that if you need anything, he's working in the center this week, to give him a call."

"Will do. I think Greg may wanna talk to you. I'm not sure. Hold on." Tony looked up to where Parke was smiling at him and reaching for the phone ready to snatch it from him. "What's that Greg?" he joked. "I'm not telling him you ran away to the circus. He didn't believe you last time, he isn't going to believe you this time." He swatted at Parke as he ducked down, keeping his phone from him as Parke climbed over him to try to get it, both men laughing, causing laughter on the other end of the line and from behind Elly's desk as they witnessed the hilarity.

"Gimme that!" Parke said, grabbing the phone finally from Tony, breathing heavily. "Hey, little brother!" He took Tony's cell and went to sit at his desk. "Yeah, you know Tony. He's just being a PAIN IN THE ASS!" He hollered across the desks, making Tony grin, and Elly and Dorney exchange smiles.

Tony eavesdropped while he typed, but nothing revealing was said. Parke told him they had implemented the database they were working on and gotten a hit, and Tony looked up, seeing all of his agents wearing the same shy smile as they could hear Shane's proud voice celebrating on the other end of the line loudly.

Tony finished typing his notes as Parke finished his conversation, returning his phone to him. He looked at the time and saw it was almost 1230. "I think it's time for lunch. What do you guys think?"

"I packed for once," Parke said. "We went out to dinner after that god awful fundraiser yesterday, and I have leftover shrimp alfredo. Pretty excited."

"I have to run to the dry cleaners," Dorney said, crinkling his nose. "Got all of my other laundry done yesterday, and dropped off the good stuff. Need to pick it up now since I have an appointment after work." He finally got to his feet from his crouched position next to Elly on the floor, steadying himself with his hand on Elly's shoulder.

"No falling over on the laptop!" Elly joked as Dorney shook his head and squeezed past him to get to his own desk. "I think I'm going to go down to the deli if you want me to grab something for you, or you can come with."

"I think I'll tag along. It's beautiful out today, and the walk would be nice." They locked down their computers, and headed for the front elevator as Dorney headed for the back. "No throwing some wild party while I'm gone, Greg. I'll tell Shane on you!"

"Heh, what's he gonna do?"

"Get jealous?" Tony said with a shrug as he turned back around at the elevator, boarding with Elly.

As they headed for the front entrance, Tony noticed that Elly was practically bouncing across the foyer. He was glad to see that he was having a good day.

"I got a question for you," Tony started as they headed down the sidewalk.

Elly raised an eyebrow at him. "Shoot."

"Well, that's kinda what it's about. What happened with you and Dorney at the range yesterday?"

Elly sighed, not sure how much he should divulge of the conversation they'd had.

"I'm not really sure, honestly. I knew he was nervous, and asked him why. He's got a good heart. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of having to hit a live target one day. We talked, and next thing I know, he's taking out the target like it had just killed his mother. Maybe that's what he was actually thinking, though I doubt it knowing his relationship with Mama Dorney isn't so great." He shrugged.

"Afterwards, he was a little… I don't know, off?" He looked at Tony for a minute, and then looked away and stopped. Tony stopped too, watching him closely. "I asked if he thought he could do it, and he said yeah, and that's what scares him."

Tony nodded, looking Elly in the eyes. He watched them drop, looking around them at the ground as he shook his head. He knew that Elly was uncomfortable with the conversation.

"Hey, don't ever feel like you have to tell me personal details of your conversations if you're not comfortable with it," Tony said, trying to meet Elly's eyes again as he nodded. "That's good to know, though. I don't know what you talked about, what you said to him that sparked such a change, but I'm grateful. I've worked with him, Ziva has worked with him… I was getting to the point I was going to ask Gibbs to take a whack at it." Elly's eyes shot up to his as he shook his head emphatically.

"Don't do that. He wouldn't have the patience for Ned."

Tony smiled. He hadn't wanted to go that route either, for the same reasons. Dorney's confidence was just starting to develop, and he didn't need Jethro's impatience wearing it down.

"You're doing an amazing job, Elly." Tony said, and then turned from the suddenly embarrassed look on Elly's face and started heading for the deli. Elly squinted at him in surprise, and then rushed to catch up with him.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask _you_ something?"

"Sure."

"Why did you decide to make me the SFA? You could have brought someone in with much more experience. You have an agency full of agents. Why me?"

Tony stopped and looked at him again. "I didn't want anyone from the outside. You and Greg already had a pretty strong bond, and it was built on an experience they would never be able to understand. Bringing in someone new to the mix, and giving them power, would have sucked for all of us. I needed someone I can trust, and you guys could trust.

"Honestly, at first, I thought Greg would be SFA because you followed his lead so well, but it didn't take long to find out that's situational. You follow him in personal matters, and you're close friends, so that makes sense.

"What really did it though was how you kept your head during the blow out at the motel. You not only stayed calm, but you handled receiving and giving directions well, and then the way you handled things at the hospital afterwards… When you were talking with Galto, he responded well to you. When you talked to Tiffany, she responded well to you.

"You relate well with people, you care about them, and more than the enormous amount of paperwork and procedure, which I knew you'd handle easily anyway, _that_ is what matters in your position. It means you'll put the team's needs first, and you'll protect them. That means something to me that I can't begin to explain." Tony watched Elly's eyes soften, and he shook his head with a smile. "See? That right there. You have an urge to know, to help, to heal and fix." Elly smiled and looked away, shaking his head.

"I thought Greg was supposed to be the profiler."

"I can tell you right now that this is a stepping stool position for you. You're going to go places that you never thought you'd go here. I hope you take your time though, because I want you to stick around on our level for a long time before you run off and become a big shot."

"I really, really like where I'm at. Not looking to go anywhere," Elly said, making eye contact again. He suddenly grinned. "That is, unless you start supergluing me to shit, then all bets are off."

Tony laughed and clapped him on the back as they started walking towards the deli again. "No promises, kid. No promises."


	6. Chapter 6

_It looks like I'm going to be moving towards longer chapters after the holidays. Been thinking about it, and after some feedback, I think it needs to be done. I miss the longer chapters I'm used to in this 'verse. I hope y'all are enjoying this thus far, and I appreciate all of the reviews and favorites! You're awesome!_

As It Seems: Chapter Six

Tim walked into the lab to find out if Abby had made any headway on the things they had gathered from the apartment. Seeing his girlfriend in her element made him smile. He discreetly checked her out, and moved to stand next to her.

"Hey, you!" she said, bumping his hip with hers as she swayed to the music playing. "Results aren't back yet on the fingerprints, but I was able to get a few more off of the things you brought me. They're running too, and we have already cleared all of them as belonging to someone other than the residents."

"That's great news. We need to find the people who did this. We gotta get those journals back before the information makes it into the wrong hands."

Abby nodded. She had gotten the story from Dina during the examination, and she was determined to do what she could to help.

"I've already called and rescheduled the viewing we had set up this evening."

"You're amazing, Abs," Tim said while clicking away at the computer next to hers to try to get into any video feeds he could close to the apartment.

"Not that amazing. We need to wrap this up by tomorrow night, at least enough to get away for two hours. There is someone else looking at it on Wednesday afternoon."

"Oh, that's not good. This is the best place we've found so far, and it sounds almost perfect. What time is the appointment?" he asked.

"It's not until 7:30. I'm going to see what I can do to ask Gibbs to let you slip away for it if things don't get resolved by then."

"Better you than me. You'll always be his favorite." Tim hadn't stopped looking away from the screen. He found two angles he could work with that were a block apart with the apartment building in between. He sent the information to his computer upstairs, and then reached over to kiss Abby on the cheek. "Love you, Abs. Gotta go."

"Love you, too, Timmy," she said with a smile over her shoulder as he rushed out of the lab.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Gibbs sat next to Dina as she explained what had happened to their friends. Her face was tear-stained, and her eyes were bright red and wet. He watched Talia and Malek's reactions closely. Talia reached her hand across the table to take Dina's as she talked, and Dina held onto it tightly. Her words from that point on were more emotional, and she wept as she explained to Talia what had happened. Gibbs' eyes focused on Malek's blank expression, and he wondered how his usually warm friend was able to show no emotion.

As Dina finished talking, Malek stood up. Gibbs thought he was going to come over and offer Dina support, but when he walked by, Gibbs got to his feet and followed him into the hall.

"Where are you going, Malek?" Gibbs asked, trying to reign in his temper, still unable to read the expression on his face.

"I need some air," he answered.

"You need air more than Dina needs your support right now?" he asked bitterly.

"I need air so I can think!" Malek came back with.

"Think about what?!" Gibbs practically shouted, earning stares from Tony's team and everyone else in the bullpen below within earshot. Malek glared at him, and turned away to walk down the steps and then out of the stairwell door next to the elevator. Gibbs shook his head at him in disbelief before going back into the conference room with the ladies.

Tony looked down at his desk, and then jumped up, grabbing his gun and creds. He jogged to the staircase door, and headed down the steps to the exit for the ground level before getting to the garage. He found Malek walking across the square, and hurried to catch up with him. He told himself the entire way that this wasn't his case, wasn't his fight, and he shouldn't get involved, that Jethro would be pissed, but something about the idea that Malek was Jethro's friend kept him going towards him.

"Malek! Hey! Wait up!" Tony shouted. Malek turned to see him coming at him and stopped with a heavy sigh. "Hey, what just happened?"

"It is not your concern," Malek answered, trying not to lose his patience. Tony ground his teeth.

"Why are you and Jethro arguing?" he asked again, more specifically.

"What does it matter, Tony? You are not on his team any longer correct? Then stay out of it."

Tony wasn't sure what had suddenly turned the jolly giant in front of him into a dick, but it tripped a fuse in him he wasn't aware he had.

"It _matters_ because when my fiancé is arguing with one of the only people I've ever heard him call a _friend_, I get a little worried!" he said with a low growl. "Now what the _hell_ just happened up there?!"

"Fiancé?"

"Yes, my fiancé. Those changes he said we'd have to go to dinner to catch up on include the announcement of our engagement. When we all went to dinner when you hit stateside, and our love lives came up, we had been talking about each other, but we couldn't tell you because the Director was there, and he didn't know yet. We're getting married in September.

"Look, I probably know Jethro better than anyone on this planet, and he doesn't call people friends easily. He knows a lot of people, and he's on good terms with more than half of them, but he planned dinner that night so that I could meet his _friends_- you, Dina and Talia. I also know what happened to Dina, so whatever went down just now upstairs must be pretty messed up for you to walk away from her. Either that, or you have a shitty idea of what it means to be a friend."

"Friends…" Malek said with a scoff. "Friends." Malek shook his head and sat down on the wall around the center gardens. Tony sat down on the wall next to him, seeing the sudden defeat in Malek's eyes, and he waited.

"Talia's brother was my best friend. She is like a little sister to me. She means so much to me, but Dina? Dina stole my heart. Dina means everything to me, and I… I mean nothing to her. I would do anything for her, and she knows this. I have told her how I feel, and she has told me that she does not feel the same way. I have understood. Love is not always returned. But she didn't…" Tony watched Malek's shoulders heave, and heard his voice catch in his throat.

"She has been dealing with this for months now, and she did not feel she could come to me? She did not tell me? That monster violated her, and she had to take his life, but she could not tell me? She could not tell Talia? We have been through fire and rain together, and she could not tell us? All she would have had to do was say the word, and I would have killed him myself for her, and yet, she could not even let me help her carry the burden of at least knowing what had happened?"

Tony took a deep breath, understanding things a little better. This was grief, and the ugly head of grief often began with anger. He wasn't sure if he was the best person to be having this discussion with him, but he knew that he had to say something while he had the moment.

"As personal as your feelings are for her, you need to think about this with your head, not your heart. Many women can't talk about the trauma of rape for a long time after the experience, if ever. If the journals had not gone missing, then you may have never known. It's not personal, Malek. It's a survival technique programmed into us. If you don't talk about it, it didn't happen. If no one else knows, it didn't happen. She didn't just keep _you_ in the dark, she kept _everyone_ in the dark.

"You need to get your head out of your ass and go be there for her, otherwise, if you think you're cut off now, you'll learn just how cut of you can really be. If you really love her, if you care about her at all, you'll get up, go back up there, and let her know that you're never going to walk away from her in a time of need ever again."

Malek looked at Tony with tears in his eyes. "I could not let her see me like this. Like I told Gibbs, I needed some air to think and get my head together. I do not know what to say."

"In moments like that, you don't always need words." Tony watched Malek shudder. "Come on, I'll take you back in."

Malek nodded and stood up, and Tony led him inside silently. Once they were in the elevator, Malek turned to Tony.

"I am worried about what Talia will think of your engagement. You may want to warn Gibbs not to tell her right now. She is the most conservative amongst us, and though I know Dina and myself will be very happy that our friend has found love, your gender may cause a rift between the two of them."

"Thanks for the warning," Tony said as they got off the lift.

"Thank you for the ass-kicking," Malek said, looking at Tony sheepishly. Tony opened the door to the conference room, and Malek walked in. Jethro looked up at Tony in confusion, and came to join him at the door. Dina looked up at Malek, and he went over to her, dropping on his knees and pulling her into his arms. She held onto him tightly and together, they wept. Jethro put a hand on Tony's shoulder and steered him out of the room.

"What just happened?" Jethro asked in confusion.

"Grief just happened," Tony said as sheepishly as Malek had just addressed him. "By the way, he knows, and don't tell Talia, she won't be happy." Tony turned to walk away, and Jethro dragged him down the hall and into the bathroom. Once he checked to make sure all of the stalls were empty, he glared at Tony.

"Try that again."

Tony steeled his resolve, and kept eye contact with him. "If it was anyone else, I wouldn't have gotten involved. They're your friends, Jethro, and by extension, that kinda means they're my friends. So, I went after him. When I caught up with him, he was being a total prick, and then when I said I knew what had happened to Dina, he broke down and told me that he was in love with her, and that she wasn't in love with him, and that he was hurt and angry that she hadn't come to him when it happened. So, I tore him a new one, and here we are."

Jethro sighed, one hand on his waist and one on his forehead as he turned and thought it through.

"I mean it though," Tony said quietly, taking a step closer to him. "If it was anyone else, I wouldn't have gotten involved. This isn't just a case though, it's personal."

Jethro let his hand run down his face and nodded.

"Yeah, it's personal- too personal," Jethro said quietly. "I don't know if I can separate, Tony."

"Yeah, you can," Tony reassured, but then Jethro's eyes locked onto his.

"No, Tony, I don't think I can. The whole professional-personal boundaries here are so blurred, and I have crossed them so many times over the past few months... I don't want things to come to light at the end of this case that come back to bite us because I have personal ties with them."

Tony nodded slowly, trying to absorb what was being said. "Are you saying you're going to turn it over?"

"I don't know."

"You know that at this point, that means they'll go into protective custody and you may never see them again."

Jethro nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"Don't do it, not yet," Tony said.

Jethro looked up at him, and Tony shook his head.

"Not yet. Let Tim, Ziva and Abby do their thing, and see what they get, and then decide. If you wanna keep it in house, let me know, and I'll step in. If you want it even further detached, we'll call Fornell. Don't turn it over though, Jethro."

Jethro squinted at him with his head tilted to the side, trying to get a read on why Tony was so against it.

"I've never heard you call someone your friends before them," Tony said quietly, and shrugged. "I don't want to see you lose any more friends." Jethro blinked and looked up at the ceiling before nodding.

"Okay. I'm going to go check with McGee and see if they've gotten anywhere yet," Jethro said quietly.

Tony reached out his hand, and Jethro took it, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Thanks, Tony."

"Anytime."

They returned to the bullpen, splitting to go their opposite ways. Tony sat down at his desk, pretending to go back to work while eavesdropping on the conversation behind him.

"What do ya got, McGee?"

"Hey, Boss. We were able to get a BOLO out on the vehicle we believe was carrying our journal thieves. It's a black Ford Focus. It's the only vehicle that entered the block and didn't immediately exit it. Traffic cams see it entering the 600 block of Center Street, and then an ATM camera shows it exiting approximately twelve minutes later. There are no other ways in or out of the area by car, and the block is completely street parking.

"Driver must have been waiting for them to leave though, because it goes through the traffic light camera just two minutes after Malek, Talia and Dina walked past the ATM at the other end of the block. No front plates on the car, so the traffic cam can't help with that, but we got a partial from the rear plate from the ATM cam. Abby is running it and trying to clear the picture of the ATM cam footage, but it was really dark, and we may not be able to get more than what we have."

Ziva came rushing into the bullpen, her phone in her hand. "My contacts were able to tell me that we have an unwelcome visitor in the area." She went behind her desk and ran a quick search, then sent the file to the plasma and joined Gibbs and Tim at the screen. "Meet Isa Ali Bak. He is an Iraqi national that has been linked to several honor killings, and has connections with the Qureshi faction."

Tony suddenly turned around in his seat, standing up to look over the partition. "Did you just say the Qureshi faction? As in the guys behind the terrorist attacks from the op we were running in March?"

All three of them turned to look at Tony. Jethro nodded and Tony bit his lip, shaking his head before sitting back down. Tony's team watched him crack his neck and squirm behind his desk.

Dorney heard the mention of an op, and he felt compelled to ask if he could help. He looked to Elly and Parke for some kind of support, and he saw them both shaking their head 'no' at him as inconspicuously as possible. Dorney's gut churned though, so he open an IM window to his boss and asked.

NDorneget01: _Anything I can do?_

Tony was startled when the window popped up in front of him. Pieces of track began to lay themselves in his mind, and he started plotting.

TDiNozzo01: _Not sure yet. The op was classified, but involved the Qureshi Faction. Read up on them._

NDorneget01: _Right away._

Dorneget was on it like flies on honey, excited to be included in the hubbub. He started with external sources, reading what he could, and then moved on to internal sources.

Meanwhile, Tony was eavesdropping again on the case.

"How can we connect Ali Bak to Dina, Talia and Malek?" Gibbs asked.

"We need to ask them that. It could be a lot of different things with what they did for various governments. We need a direction to start the search," Tim said quietly enough that Tony had to strain to hear.

"I'll go talk to them," Gibbs said. "In the meantime, start piecing together what you can." Tim and Ziva turned immediately to go back to their desks, and Gibbs headed for the staircase.

He knew that he should probably check in with Vance and let him know what they had so far, but he wasn't really sure where it was going yet, and like McGee had said, they needed a direction. He carefully opened the door to the conference room, unsure of what he was going to walk into. The scene he had left behind twenty minutes earlier had been painful, and what he saw before him wasn't much better.

Dina had laid down in one of the armchairs, her feet up on a conference table chair. She looked like she was out cold. Malek and Talia were standing close together at the other end of the room close to the windows, talking in hushed voices. When Gibbs closed the door, they turned to look at him. He could tell they had both been crying, and his eyes met Malek's, who looked down at the table, obviously ashamed of his earlier outburst.

He went to the far end of the conference table, and leaned against it. He bypassed the emotional part of the situation, and tried to stay on the professional side of that blurry line.

"We have heard that Isa Ali Bak is in town. Do you know who he is?" he asked.

The two people in front of him looked at each other for a moment with grief-stricken eyes, and then back at Gibbs.

"By reputation only," Malek said. "His name is well-known by people who seek revenge on those that are believed to have shamed their families."

"And by those who are afraid of their families because of their disagreements. As I have no family any longer," Talia said quietly, "I know it is not I that he would have come after."

They all looked over at the sleeping figure across the room, and Malek shook his head.

"Dina's family would do this," he said quietly, a slow rage burning in his voice that Gibbs recognized immediately. "The Ta'anaris are not good people, Gibbs. Dina does not go back to her village for any reason now, and we would never take assignments there. They are violent people, involved in many uprisings on the opposite side of the war than what we fight."

"Things must have… progressed for them," Talia said, looking at Malek and then back at Gibbs. "They are very bad people, but they do not have the…" She struggled for the word, looking to Malek for help.

"The clout, the connections," Malek offered.

"Yes! The clout," she said, trying the word out. "They do not have the clout to hire someone so well-known and send him here."

"Or at least they did not when Dina left the clan," Malek said.

"Why did she leave?" Gibbs asked quietly, looking over his shoulder to see if Dina was awake to tell the story herself. She was still passed out. When he turned back to Malek, he saw his eyes were on her as well, and he knew that what Tony had said was undoubtedly true. The look he had was that of a man in love, and he wondered why he had not seen it before.

"She is stronger than they are. Braver, wiser, kinder. She wants change, but it is not the change that her family wants. The fact that she can read and write alone would anger them greatly. She began receiving threats from her family, and ran from home in the dark of night with not much of her own."

Talia picked up the story. "She and I met in the market when my family traveled to her village to sell some of the things they had made. She found us that night, and asked if she could come with us, afraid for her life. My own parents were very kind people. They hid her, and we took her out of her village and back to ours. When I lost them and my brother, she was there for me. I hope I can be there for her now. What I can do, I will do. Please let me know."

Gibbs looked at her warmly, understanding that sense of loyalty. He thought of Tony's unwavering loyalty to him, and his words that Talia would not approve of them. The idea suddenly hurt him. Tony was right- these were his friends, and the thought of losing them was painful, especially over a bigotry that he hadn't expected any of them to have. He pushed the emotions back over to the personal side of that blurry line, and nodded.

"We need to know if any of your assignments other than the most recent op would have put you in the cross-hairs of the Qureshi faction. Ali Bak has ties to them, and we're trying to find some sort of direction. What can you tell me about what you've been working on this past year?" Gibbs took his little notebook and pen out of his pocket, and Talia and Malek moved to sit down. Gibbs sat at the head of the table, and started taking notes as they explained their most recent missions. Most of the contracts had been through the US government, but there were a couple through other NATO allies as well.

Most of the things they had worked on were fact-finding missions. Though Malek did have to take out one target this year, it was not anything that would have connected them to the Qureshi or earned them a bounty. He was missing something, he knew he was, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Something wasn't adding up, but the most likely scenario they had in front of them was that Isa Ali Bak was in town to kill Dina.

"I'm going to find out where you will be staying tonight, and come let you know. Until then, hang tight." Both of them gave him a nod, and he got up to leave, glancing at Dina on the way out. She was paler than usual as she snored lightly, and he worried about her. _I hope Ducky's tests come back soon for her,_ he thought as he headed down the stairs.

"McGee, Ziva, anything new?" he said, going behind his desk.

"Nothing on the BOLO," McGee said.

"I have a contact who is trying to find out more information about Ali Bak and what he plans on doing in D.C. She says that he hit their radar two nights ago, but she does not know for sure that is when he arrived."

"Any word on _how_ he got here?" Gibbs asked.

"She cannot say," Ziva said. He nodded, understanding that many of Ziva's contacts were speaking as unofficially as one can get.

"I'm trying to find out how anyone could have known where they were staying, Boss, but there is no sign whatsoever that the system has been breached, and only the three of us, Vance and Tony knew where they were staying. They don't even have a protection detail assigned to them." McGee shook his head as he typed away at the keyboard in front of him, a confused look on his face that matched what Gibbs was feeling.

"Could the information have been intercepted when we were setting up the place? Before they even got in there?" Gibbs asked, trying to think of different ways to look at this since the way he had been simply wasn't working for him.

"No. I set it up with complete anonymity. They only thing that's attached to that file is my name and that the apartment was being used for protective services related to a classified op. Not even your name or Tony's is attached to it, and with it being tagged as in connection with a classified op, if the protection staff would have wanted to inquire further, and they would have had to go through me or you, or at the time, Tony, to find out more information. None of us were contacted. They generally will leave it alone anyway when they see that flag."

"What about the building landlord?"

"The management company is Greenfield, and they have processes in place with us for multiple units around the city. They leave them empty, DOD pays for the utilities to remain on at all times in the units, and we fill them as needed. They have no idea who is in the unit, their background, or anything. The protection staff cleared the place and were gone before we ever transported Malek, Talia and Dina to the site." Tim kept his fingers on his keyboard as he looked up to go over the details with Gibbs, and saw him shake his head. "I know that's not exactly what you wanted to hear," Tim said with a wince.

"Ya think?" Gibbs shook his head, then looked up to see just how haggard McGee looked. He knew he felt responsible, and that he was making it worse. There's no one else he would trust more with the job of placing his friends than the kid, and damn it all if this case wasn't making him sentimental enough to give a damn about it. "Concentrate on finding Ali Bak, and see where Malek and the ladies can go tonight. I want agents on their door around the clock."

Tim nodded and started typing again, changing tactics.

"Ziva, what did you get from the other tenants in the building?"

"Everyone was asleep. No one heard anything unusual, nor did they see anything. It was still very early, or very late, depending on how you look at it." Gibbs nodded. That was what he had expected.

"Okay. I want as much information on Ali Bak as soon as you can get it." Gibbs turned to his own computer, pulling up information, determined to find the answers he felt just out of reach.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Tony couldn't take the tension of listening to the case going on behind him anymore. He corralled his team, and they headed for the gym for some sparring. He and Parke were teamed up, and Dorney and Elly were together on the mat next to them. Tony swiped Parke's feet out from under him, but his baby agent rolled from him quickly before he could pin him down. Both of them were back on their feet. and Tony smiled at his fast recovery.

"Completely expected that to bring you down since you landed on that shoulder," Tony said.

"It's a lot better, and I make sure to do my physical therapy," Parke said with a smirk as they circled one another.

"Good," Tony said before coming at him again.

Parke dodged again, and as Tony slid past him a foot, he hit Tony across the back while tripping him, landing Tony on his chest. Tony turned and grabbed Parke's foot as he tried to press it on his back, pulling and then twisting to knock him off balance and bring him down hard on his side. Tony swung to his knees and pinned Parke to the ground, pulling his hands behind his back. Parke attempted to buck him off, but Tony tucked his feet under Parke's legs, making it impossible. Parke laid his head down on the mat in defeat, breathing hard.

"Gotta keep moving," Tony said as he caught his own breath, then got to his feet, offering Parke his hand. Parke took it, and let Tony pull him to his feet as he nodded.

"Yeah, that one hurt though," he admitted, rubbing his shoulder and shaking it out. Tony nodded, understanding and watching him with concern for a minute.

"It gets easier," he said with a smirk as Parke raised an eyebrow at him. "Every time you get shot you'll find the recovery time gets cut in half." He shrugged as Parke rolled his eyes. "I'm partial to the concussion myself, as McGee will be glad to give you details and stats on, but I've definitely had my share of lead taken out of me."

"I will expect the worst and hope for the best," Parke said, then froze and stared at the other mat in disbelief. He then burst out laughing. Tony turned to see what was so funny, and found that Elly had Dorneget on the floor, tickling him mercilessly.

"If you hate it so much," Elly shouted over Dorneget and Parke's laughter, "You'll kick my ass, and make me stop!"

Elly wasn't expecting the kind of revenge that Dorney had in mind though. Ned reached up through his fit of giggles and started pinching Elly's sides hard, making him yelp and jump back. Dorney took the advantage and rolled so that Elly was now pinned beneath him. He grabbed his arms and pressed his knees into the crooks of his elbows, sitting across his chest as he caught his breath.

"You're evil!" Dorney said as Elly chuckled below him. "That was cruel and unusual punishment! Isn't that outlawed in the Geneva Convention or something? I'm pretty sure tickling is why they closed Gitmo."

"That and the Barney theme song being blared over and over again," Elly agreed with a smile, not attempting to move as he caught his own breath.

"I'm pretty sure it was the waterboarding," Tony said, suddenly standing over both of them.

"Hey, Boss!" Elly said with a smile. "Finally got him to pin me!"

"Yeah, so I see."

Dorney was suddenly on his feet, helping Elly up, his own expression much more concerned than Elly's.

"Alternative tactics seem to work best," Elly said with a smirk as he looked at Dorney.

"I'd rather be shot than tickled," Ned grumbled, making Elly laugh. Tony smiled, and shook his head.

"Well, at least you know your options. Come on guys, time for showers." Tony turned to walk away, and a few seconds later heard a thump and groan. He turned around to find Elly on the ground on his back again. Dorney just smirked and headed for the showers. Tony walked back over to Elly, and looked down at him.

"What just happened?" he asked.

"I tried to tickle him again," Elly said with what little breath hadn't been knocked out of him. Tony started laughing and turned around, leaving Elly to compose himself on the floor.

_Alternate tactics, _he thought to himself. _Kid is full of them, and they manage to always work. Starting to understand why Jethro always kept us so close. _He stopped as he reached the doorway to the locker room, and turned to see Elly trying to sit up. _Don't want Vance to send him up the ladder yet, but I won't make the same mistake. _He nodded to himself. _Gotta make sure he gets his chance to shine._


	7. Chapter 7

_This is the first of the longer chapters, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. Hope you enjoy! Much thanks and love for those that have reviewed, favorite and followed! If you need reminders on anything, let me know and I can either summarize or tell you where to find it in Out of the Basement :) Happy reading, and as I don't foresee another chapter before Christmas, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!_

As It Seems: Chapter Seven

Ziva looked down at her phone for the hundredth time, watching the message notification light blinking. She was on the phone with a contact, trying to see if they had any information on Ali Bak's arrival. The text was undoubtedly from Dion about their plans that night. She hated to tell him that she was going to have to cancel, but she knew that he would understand. That was the most amazing thing about the man. He wanted her in his plans, but he wasn't mad at her for having to bail because of work. He would be upset, but not at her, and she appreciated it more than she had ever thought she would.

She hung up the desk phone finally, and grabbed her cell. Flipping it open, her fear was confirmed. Dion was asking her if she was going to make the taste testing that night at the restaurant. She shook her head, wanting to be there much more than where she was right then. She put off replying, and relayed to Gibbs that her contact had no idea where their bounty hunter had slipped off the grid to.

McGee confirmed that he had agents waiting downstairs to escort their trio to the motel they would be staying in for the rest of the case, and Gibbs nodded.

"Something's missing," Gibbs said, shaking his head. Tony and his team came back into the bullpen, and their laughter and amusement in one another caught Gibbs' attention, making him smile as his eyes met Tony's. He watched as everyone but Tony grabbed their stuff, and then said their goodbyes. He thought for a moment about what Tony had said earlier, and about what he had said to Tony. This was personal, not just a case, and Malek, Talia and Dina were his friends by proxy. He looked at Tim and Ziva as they watched him for their next step.

"McGee, make sure our displaced visitors get transferred to the protection detail. Ziva, keep your lines open tonight for your original contact to get back with you. If you find out anything, you call me immediately. Same with the BOLO, McGee. Go on, get out of here. We'll come back to it with fresh eyes in the morning. I got something I gotta do." Gibbs grabbed his cell, and headed for the bathroom, flipping it open and texting Tony.

_Meet me in the can?_

Tony got the text, and looked at the phone with a raised eyebrow. He had heard what Jethro had just told the team, and was curious about what it was he had to do. He figured he was about to find out. He casually got up, and headed for the bathroom. He went in and found Jethro leaning against the sink. Tony glanced at the other stalls to find all of their doors open. He turned and locked the main door, and looked at Jethro.

"What's up?" he asked quietly.

"I need you to do something with me."

"Anything," Tony said, leaning against the sink with Jethro, his head turned to watch him.

"I'm going to go back to the apartment, and see if I can get a feel for what happened. There is absolutely no way anyone could have known where they were without someone on the inside turning, and the pool of people we have to choose from only includes our team- well, my team and you, and of course Vance. Something isn't right. I think we're barking up the wrong tree."

"You want me to go with you?" Tony asked, somewhat confused.

"Yeah. I wasn't at the scene earlier, and I don't want McGee and Ziva to think I don't trust them. McGee is taking this kinda hard, considering he set up their safe house. He thinks he's screwed it up somehow, but I don't think so. I really don't. I think we're looking at this from the wrong angle. Somewhat impartial eyes may help."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, sure. Anything. Are we waiting for them to leave?" he asked.

"No. Let's just get going. I think the sooner I can cross something, anything, off the list, the better I'll be able to get a handle on this thing."

"Alright. Let's go," Tony said. "Should probably…" Tony nodded to the urinal with a shrug. Jethro smirked and unlocked the door, leaving Tony to do his business.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Tim and Ziva didn't waste any time in getting their responsibilities in place so that they could leave. Ziva was ecstatic to be able to tell Dion she would be there tonight, and Tim was hoping to get a little bit of privacy to look further into his coding to make sure there wasn't any way someone could have compromised his system when he had put the orders through for the apartment acquisition.

Gibbs came back through the bullpen, grabbing his stuff and turning off his desk lamp, leaving in a rush. Ziva was already gone, and Tim was on his way up the steps to get Malek, Talia and Dina. Gibbs had to fight back the urge to join him and explain what they knew so far, but there wasn't much, and he couldn't face his friends without any answers yet.

Tony was right on his heels as they went down the staircase together. Tony could tell that Jethro was still in "Gibbs mode" before they had made it down a full flight, because he didn't get pulled into the blind spot for a quick kiss, which had become their thing. He furrowed his brow as he kept going into the garage, following Jethro to their cars.

"You wanna drive separately or together?" Tony asked.

"Together, if that's okay with you," Jethro said, looking over at Tony, searching for the comfort the younger man's eyes always offered him.

"Sure," Tony said with a small smile, meeting Jethro's eyes before getting into the passenger side of the Challenger. "I take it we're doing this off the books?"

"Yeah," Jethro said, backing out of the space. "I don't plan on collecting any evidence unless we need to. Just feel like if I knew the environment, I'd feel a little better. Not used to _not_ visiting the scene."

"I get it," Tony said. "Were you able to get anywhere with Ali Bak?" Tony asked as casually as he could, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Jethro for his reaction.

Jethro shook his head and smiled at Tony's apparent eavesdropping, taking his hand as they drove through the city.

"No. Dina's family is on the wrong side of the war, and though they're the types to do something like send a bounty hunter after her, the last time anyone checked, they didn't have the means."

"Even with their connections to the Qureshi faction?" Tony asked.

"We don't know if they have connections to them yet," Jethro said with a shrug.

"Uh…" Tony wasn't sure how to say it without giving up what he and Dorney had been researching. He thought about it for a moment, and then exhaled, knowing he would just have to accept being busted. "Yeah they do."

Jethro turned to look at him with a raised brow.

"When I heard you bring up the faction earlier, and I asked if I'd heard you right, it peaked Dorney's interest since it was connected to an op. He knows what we're setting him up for, and he asked if there was anything he could do, so I told him to start learning about the faction. He went a little further than just the faction though, and he sent me his findings. I looked into them myself, and together, we gathered that the Ta'anaris are a major supporter of the faction, and have been helping them gather materials and information for the past five years."

Jethro groaned, and Tony was afraid it was because he had gotten involved with the case. Before he could apologize though, Jethro started speaking. "Dina hasn't been home in over fifteen years, so she wouldn't have known that. Talia and Malek have obviously been keeping tabs on the situation from afar, but they didn't know they had those kinds of resources now either."

"Yeah, it appears they do." Tony left it at that.

"Can you send me the information when we get back to the Yard?" Jethro asked.

"Yeah, definitely."

"Thanks, Tony, for having my back," Jethro said, looking over at him.

"That's what I'm here for, Jethro," Tony said with a small smile. "Like I said, I'll always be one of yours."

Jethro smiled broadly at that and shook his head a little bit. "So, I see."

They pulled up outside of the building and got out, making sure to scan the area. It was warm and sunny still, and the light reflected too much off of the windows of the building to see if anyone was watching them from above. They headed into the stairwell, and up one flight. Jethro pulled out his lock picking kit, and Tony stood guard. It took a couple of minutes since McGee had locked the deadbolt as well behind him, but they got in without incident.

Tony pulled a glove on, and flipped the light switch. It was obvious that the placed had been tossed. Stuff was everywhere, seemingly thrown around at random. They started looking through the apartment, though Tony had no idea what they were looking for now. It was a large two bedroom with a small alcove for an office that it appeared Malek had made his bedroom.

"If you want, we can gather some of their things to have waiting for them when they come in tomorrow," Tony suggested. "Give some credence to why we came over."

"Nah. We'll let protection bring them over after they get situated, but I don't want it out that we're here yet."

"Okay," Tony said, wondering what was going on in his partner's head. "Anything you want me to look for?"

"If you see the damned diaries, it would make my night, but I don't think they'll be in here anywhere."

Tony nodded, going down the hallway to the back bedroom. He noticed something lying across the nightstand, and carefully picked up the wadded up tissues there, finding a silver chain with a blue turquois stone on the end. It was beautiful, and he wondered why it hadn't been taken. He looked around, and he found plenty of things that he would have stolen if he was there to rob them. He wondered if the drawers to the dresser in the room had been left open by Ziva and McGee, by whichever woman was staying in that room, or by the intruders. He figured it would have had to have been left open by Ziva and McGee. He laid the necklace back on the nightstand and moved through the apartment.

"Well, it wasn't just a normal robbery," Tony said nonchalantly. "There are too many things left in here I'd have stolen if I robbed the place." He watched Jethro moving through the apartment, taking stock. He noticed that Malek's things were just as equally tossed as Dina and Talia's, and something about it struck him. "If they were after Dina, why would they have gone through Malek's things?"

"Probably just covering all of their bases," Jethro said as he looked down at Malek's cubby hole with Tony.

"But McGee said that they only had twelve minutes, including the time to pick the locks, get back out to the car, and leave based on the video footage, right?"

Jethro nodded, looking at Tony with that cocked eyebrow again.

"That's not really enough time to do all this, unless there was more than one person. Ali Bak would've had to of had someone working with him. I wonder if Abby was able to clean up the footage enough to possibly be able to make out whether or not there were one or two people in the car."

Jethro smiled at Tony. "And that's why I love you," he said, leaning in to kiss him quickly. Tony was pleasantly surprised, and grinned to himself as he watched Jethro pull out his phone to call Abby.

Tony followed Jethro out, flipping the light switch off again in the entrance. They closed the door behind them, and Tony pulled his glove off. Jethro started going down the steps as a medium build man started coming up them. Tony was still standing by the apartment door, and the guy eyed him carefully. Tony watched him go up the second flight of stairs, and the guy looked down after Tony who was still staring at him, watching him closely. Tony moved to the bottom of the second flight of stairs, and heard the man unlock the apartment door right above the one they were just in.

He turned and looked around him, checking to see how the apartments were numbered, and then went down the stairs, stopping at the mailbox to see the last name of the tenant in apartment number nine. He cross-referenced it with the door entry system outside, and saw the names matched. _J. Brand._ He headed towards the car to find Jethro waiting for him, watching him from over the roof of it.

"Whatcha thinking?"

"I just got the stink eye from some guy that went into apartment nine. Got an uneasy feeling about it. Name on the doorbell says J. Brand. Might look into him a little," he said with a shrug as they got in.

"Abby is going to try to clear the video enough to see if there is a second person in the car. If there is, that may put us on a different course. Ali Bak is renowned for working alone."

"Good," Tony said, smiling at the improvement in his lover's demeanor. "So what are your plans for the rest of the evening?"

Jethro looked at Tony before turning the key over. "Wanna get some dinner?" he asked, smiling at Tony as he watched the grin spread across his face.

"Would love to. Where do you want to go?" Tony asked, his voice changing to the more personal, familiar tone they took with each other.

"What about the seafood place that we went with our teams that day for lunch?"

"Herman's? Sure! Sounds good."

Jethro turned the key in the ignition, and then reached over and took Tony's hand in his, entwining their fingers. He had known that Tony would lead him to the answers he needed. He appreciated McGee and Ziva, but Tony had a natural investigative edge that led to the kind of babble that kept everyone's thoughts flowing, especially his. He relied on his yabba yabba, and it meant more to him than he thought it would to have Tony be there for him like he had been today.

He'd pulled Malek back around, supported him when he thought he was going to have to turn over the case, was doing research for him, and had just gone with him to the scene. He smiled and squeezed Tony's fingers as he thought about what Tony had said earlier. _I'll always be one of yours. _He'd said those words to him on the Americana, and even over two months later, they were still just as true.

Tony had his phone in his right hand, making a note to look into J. Brand in apartment nine, setting the reminder for an hour and a half later.

"Talked to Vance earlier about the Stafford case, and I brought Elly with me to explain it. Turned into something kinda big," Tony said casually, still looking at his phone.

"Oh, yeah?" Jethro asked.

"Yeah. Elly explained to Vance what we'd done with the database and an idea he had about changing how we do cold cases. You know that big nationwide database they're doing?" Tony asked, looking up at Jethro to find him nodding. "We're going to start one of our own, only we're going to be able to choose the parameters we can search by. Elly has it all worked out, and though some of it is going to suck, it's brilliant. He pitched it, totally pitched it, and totally nailed it. I had no idea he was even thinking about it."

"What's going to change?" Jethro started looking for a place to park on the block of the restaurant.

"Well, right now there's a couple data entry people scanning a bunch of stuff into the database, and it takes them forever, and we can't really search by that. We can just pull up those digital scans for now. What we're going to do though, is start entering the cold cases ourselves when we're working on them.

"Elly's got basically a worksheet put together. Certain details will have drop down menus we can choose race and gender and stuff from, but the part that both sucks and kinda revolutionizes this for us, is that we're going to have to type in the original agents' case notes. The cool part is that there's this little thing you highlight important words and phrases with, Elly's example had drugs, bone-handled knife, and something else, I don't remember, but then those words that you highlight, get put into the searchable database. So if you were to come across a weird case and you needed to know if there were similar cases out there, you can type in bone-handled knife, and that case will be one of the ones that came up. You can review it, see if it's similar or not, and take it from there.

"You can also add your own notes and highlight. If there is an interview, interrogation, any kind of video or audio, it can be transcribed by either us, or a tech, and then we can highlight the phrases we find important. That means we can highlight phrases that fit a psychological profile as well as general evidence based information.

"Right now, it would take McGee hours to research based on those kinds of details to find cases alone, nonetheless the process of whittling them down. If you do it with the database though, we can choose to search through NCIS, the entire alphabet, or nationally. If we're doing it in-house, I'm expecting an immediate turn around. The extended alphabet, probably a couple of minutes. Nationally may take an hour or so to run, but right now, we can't even _do_ that nationally."

Jethro looked at Tony, smiling at his excitement and obvious pride in his agent. "This is something that the FBI and CIA and them are doing, too? I thought Tobias said the other night that they didn't have anything like that."

"They don't yet. Vance is going to let us design it, get it together, and then pitch it to the other agencies. Specifically, he's going to let Elly and McGee do it. It's only to be worked on during our downtime though. He thinks that this might be what we need in order to propose the funding to reclaim our Cold Case team."

"That would be incredible. Proud of you Tony."

"It was all Elly's brilliance! Talked with Vance afterwards about possibly making Elly an interagency liaison of sorts. I've noticed he has a certain comfort level with talking to other agents, and keeps a good rapport with them, no matter what the agency. I've got to talk to Fornell about helping us with the Stafford cases since the victims we're working with now don't have any real connection to the Navy. I plan on asking him if he thinks his director would be interested in the database."

Jethro leaned forward and pulled Tony towards him, kissing him slowly. He loved to see Tony so excited about work. To see him this worked up and proud of his agents made him happy. He had beaten himself up over holding Tony back for a while, but like Tony had said, it all happened the way it was supposed to. He pulled back from the kiss smiling.

Tony smiled too and blinked. "Are you trying to shut me up?" Tony asked with a smirk and raised eyebrow.

Jethro chuckled.

"No," he said, shaking his head and looking at Tony's lips again. "I just… I'm glad you're happy, Tony."

"Got everything anyone could ever ask for, only I never knew to ask for it."

Jethro leaned in with a smile and kissed him again. "Come on, let's go eat."

They went in and were seated, and looked over the menu. Once their orders were placed and their drinks set in front of them, Tony started talking again, unable to get work out of his head.

"I came in today, and I had a set of range scores in my inbox."

Jethro looked at him over his cup of coffee.

"Elly took Dorneget to the range with him yesterday. Ned's scores were almost perfect."

The surprise on Jethro's face was obvious, and Tony chuckled.

"Yeah. That's what I thought, too. I called the range to verify that I had gotten the correct scores, and they were right. Talked to Elly about it, and he apparently had a heart to heart with Dorney at the range, and something clicked for him. Elly's been really good for him. Parke too, but Elly's taken him under his wing, and something he said in the gym today made sense. He said that alternative tactics work best with him. Dorney was _finally_ able to pin him down in sparring practice after employing some of those _alternative tactics_. It was hilarious. Tickle torture." Tony chuckled at the horrified look on Jethro's face. "I know! Then we're all heading back in, and he apparently tried to tickle him again, and Dorneget knocked him on his ass! It was great!"

"Well, at least we know he's capable of it." Jethro looked confused, but shrugged and took another drink of his coffee.

"From what Elly was saying, that's the problem. Ned knows he capable of it, and it scares him."

Jethro's eyes closed, and he nodded as if though everything made sense now.

"What?" Tony asked, taking a drink of his iced tea.

"I've met the type, that's all. They'll do what they need to do when the time comes, but when you meet them, you'd never know they were capable because they're just too _nice._ Kind of like how we felt when we saw his test scores in strategic planning. You wouldn't think he's capable of handling complex maneuvers, but I bet we won't really get it until you let him loose in MTAC."

Tony nodded, sheepishly. "I have a feeling that's kind of what everyone thought when I was made team leader," he sighed, not quite able to meet Jethro's eyes. "Everyone acts so surprised that things are turning out as well as they are. Vance was all starry-eyed when I mentioned Elly possibly being a liaison today. Kept complimenting me. It's weird when it feels so natural do be doing this." He finally looked up at Jethro, and then looked back into his iced tea.

"He had the same reaction when you came on with the op in March. He'll get past it soon enough. You're setting the bar high; always have."

Tony felt his cheeks getting warm. "He, um, told me today he'd rather send us out this week on a high profile case than Balboa's team since you guys will be busy. I asked him not to put us in the position to step on anyone else's toes."

"What did he say to that?" Jethro asked.

"He agreed. Said that he'll keep a balance between the agency's needs and ours."

Jethro nodded. "I emailed him an update on the mess I'm stuck in this afternoon. He's gunning for me to go after Ali Bak. Would be good for the agency to be the one to bring him in, but something just feels off about it. Yeah, I'd love to bring the bastard down, but I don't know. It doesn't _feel_ like it's him. Hard to get a read on it when I'm so personally invested in it."

"Sometimes the obvious solutions aren't the right ones," Tony said, shrugging. He'd long since come to understand Jethro's gut was more accurate than any kind of barometer ever created.

The waitress brought them their food and they dug in.

"We still doing that thing with Ziva on Friday?" Jethro asked Tony between bites.

"Yeah, as long as there isn't anything to keep us from it. She's so excited about the restaurant opening. She's put so much work into it with Dion over the past few months. I think he's good for her."

Jethro smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I think so, too. She seems happier over the past couple of months than I ever remember seeing her with."

"I'm just glad he's so far removed from the job. She needs that."

Jethro nodded emphatically, his mouth full.

"Stopped down to see Abby earlier. She and McGee were supposed to go look at that apartment they really want tonight, but they'd rescheduled it for tomorrow since it looked like your case was getting hot. I told her I'd let you know. Someone else is looking at it Wednesday morning, so they really need to sneak away to go look at it."

"As long as we're not breaking things wide open, they can probably get away for an hour or so."

"I'll text her later and let her know. I still can't believe they're moving in together. That's a little crazy. I'm happy for them, but I still can't get over how quickly everything is changing around here."

"They're all good changes. That's what scares me."

Tony raised an eyebrow at Jethro.

"We don't exactly have the best track record for good news," Jethro said out of the side of his mouth before forking a bit of crab cake.

"Plan for the worst, hope for the best," Tony said, reiterating Parke's sentiment from earlier.

They ate the rest of their meal talking about the wedding. They still had no idea what they wanted to do by time they were heading back to the Yard, but Tony wasn't stressing about it.

Tony got out of the car, stretching. "We going up so I can send you what we got on the Qureshi and Ta'anaris?"

Jethro nodded getting out. They got out of the elevator in the bullpen and found Abby and Tim talking at Tim's desk.

"What are you still doing here, McGee?" Jethro asked as he headed to his own desk.

"Gibbs!" Abby said. "Will you please tell Tim that there's no way he screwed up?"

McGee rolled his eyes, and turned to look at his boss. "Don't listen to her, Boss. I'll figure out where the weakness is."

"McGee, she's right. There's no way your acquisitioning the apartment could have been compromised. I pulled the sheet earlier to put in my case file, and there are no names listed on the report. You and Ziva weren't officially ever listed as part of the op, so no one outside of our team would've been looking for it to come from you. We're missing something here, and we're going to find it, but not tonight. Go home."

Tony smiled at his desk on the other side of the partition, eavesdropping on the whole conversation.

"McGee!" he hollered over his shoulder. "Did Critten find the time to tell you today about the database?"

"What about it?" Tim shouted so he could be heard.

"Give him a call. I'm sure he'd love to tell you."

Tim looked at Abby and then Gibbs with a questioning look.

"Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you," Jethro said. "Go ahead and give him a call, but on the way home. Go."

Tim nodded slowly, and started to shut down his computers. Abby smiled at him and jumped up.

"I'll go get my stuff, and meet you downstairs," she said.

"I'll do what I can to get you two out of here for your appointment tomorrow night," Jethro said, looking at his computer as he pulled up his email. "No promises though."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Abby said, coming around his desk to give him a quick hug.

"Yeah, thanks, Boss. That would be awesome," Tim said, suddenly in better spirits.

"Have a good night," he said, trying to get the point across that he wanted to be alone with his work. Abby hopped away to go downstairs to her lab and gather her things, and Tim walked across the bullpen to the stairwell door slowly, still lost in thought.

As soon as he knew they were alone, Tony hit send on the email he had with the gathered intel. He heard the little beep from Jethro's computer informing him that the mail had arrived, and then heard the click of his mouse. The bullpen was completely silent other than the sounds of the two men typing away at their work.

Tony started running his search on J. Brand and found that his name was James. He looked into his background and found multiple indictments of Aggravated Menacing and Domestic Violence. He also had a weapons charge brought against him that was dropped due to a technicality. Further searching proved that he couldn't hold a job, and that he had lived in over a dozen places over the past five years. He didn't sound like a good guy, but he didn't have a history of breaking an entering or theft, at least not that was on record.

"Hey, Jethro?" he said as he read over the reports.

"Yeah?"

"James Brand, the guy in apartment nine? He's done a little time for aggravated menacing and D. V. and he's got a failed conviction for a weapons charge. Sounds like a bad egg, but nothing for theft."

"Probably why he was looking at ya all funny. You look like a cop, he doesn't like 'em."

Tony turned around in his chair to smile towards Jethro. The last bit of daylight was coming through the big paned glass window on the far wall, and he was glad to see summer's longer days finally upon them. He got up to stretch and wandered down to it, looking out on the square. It was beautiful like that. A little oasis in the middle of the chaos. He was definitely a city boy, but he'd come to learn to appreciate those little pieces of natural beauty in the concrete jungle.

He wasn't sure of how long he was standing there when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to smile up at Jethro, then looked back out the window.

"Feels like home," Tony said quietly.

"It is," Jethro said simply.

"Kinda wish we could have the wedding right out there," Tony said softly. Jethro raised an eyebrow at him. "Simmons would be all over it though, and anyone else who might have their own thoughts about it. The drama wouldn't be worth it."

"We'll figure it out, Tony."

Tony nodded.

"Did you find out what you needed from those files?" Tony asked, still looking at the orange glow on the courtyard.

"Yeah. It looks like it's him. Still doesn't feel right, but maybe… I guess I just don't want to think about what's going to happen if we fail."

Tony turned towards him, the exhaustion in his voice worrying him. "You'll get the bastard, Jethro. I'll be right there with you every step of the way if you want, but you _will_ get him."

"Yeah," Jethro said, nodding and sighing. "At what cost?" Their eyes met.

"What cost is too much for a friend?" Tony asked quietly. Jethro smiled crookedly at him. "Come on, Jethro. Let's go home."

They turned back to their desks, and gathered their things. This time, when going down the stairs, they stopped in their blind bend and shared a quick kiss, making both men smile.

Tony parked on the street, letting Jethro have the driveway to himself in case he needed to pull out for the case in the middle of the night. He smirked at the lights already on in the house. Jethro had flown out of the parking garage at lightning speed, eager to get out of the work headspace, while Tony, having a great day, took his time. He switched gears as he came up the driveway, turning work off and concentrating on what he could do to make Jethro feel more relaxed.

He closed the door behind him, and hearing noises upstairs, headed up himself. He made his way to the bedroom, peeling out of his work clothes and slipping into a t-shirt and basketball shorts. He peeked around the door into the bathroom to find Jethro about to step into the shower. He raised an eyebrow, watching with rapt attention, pulling his top lip in between his teeth.

"Hey," he finally managed.

"Hey," Jethro said, looking at Tony through the clear shower curtain as he turned on the water.

"You heading to the basement, or you wanna catch a game with me on the couch?" Tony's voice was broken and distracted as he watched the water running down Jethro's body.

Jethro looked at Tony watching him through the shower curtain and smirked.

"What are you doing?"

"Wh-what am I doing?" Tony asked, confused.

"Yeah. Why are you out there?"

A broad smile broke across Tony's face, and he was peeling off his clothes in record time, pulling back the curtain to join Jethro under the stream of water.

"That's more like it," Jethro said softly, pulling Tony towards him, and leaning in to take his mouth in a starving kiss.

"Wasn't sure…" Tony tried between kisses. "If you… wanted… to be a-… lone or not."

Jethro's hands were on Tony's ass, kneading the muscles there as he moved his lips to Tony's neck, kissing, suckling and nibbling on it.

"Always…" he said before running his tongue up Tony's neck to his ear. "Always want you in here with me."

The raspy voice in Tony's ear made him shiver, and Jethro pulled him closer so that their cocks rubbed against one another. Tony gasped at the friction, and Jethro smiled, leaning in to kiss him again. Their tongues slid over one another, their teeth took turns nibbling each other's lips, and the water streamed down their faces and bodies.

Tony reached for the soap from behind Jethro's shoulders, and began lathering his hands. He put them to good use on Jethro's shoulders, trying to massage the tension out of them as much as possible while still kissing each other. Jethro groaned into the kiss, and rested his head on Tony's shoulder while Tony worked at the knots there. His hands slipped down Jethro's back, and finally he turned his lover so that he was facing the wall, propped against it while he used the soap to ease the way his hands slid over his back and shoulders.

Jethro hummed in pleasure. He'd gotten used to the healing powers of Tony's touch over the past couple of months, but he never failed to appreciate their magic. He wanted to feel those hands all over his body though, not just his back and shoulders. As soon as he was sure the soap was all rinsed off of him, he reached down and turned the water off.

Tony stepped back, wondering if Jethro was okay.

"Let's take this in the other room," he said, turning to kiss Tony thoroughly.

"Uh-huh," Tony managed, dazed by the passion in the kiss. They stepped out of the shower, drying off quickly as they moved into the bedroom.

As they reached the bed, Jethro pulled Tony close to him by the hand, kissing him again and pulling him down on the bed, turning to lay Tony on his back. He loved how pliable the younger man was to his demands, simply enjoying everything they did together. He knew that if Tony wanted something different, he would take it, and there would be no doubts about what he preferred. Tonight though, Tony was willing to give himself up to whatever Jethro wanted, and he relished in that.

He felt Tony's hands caress up his chest, and his fingers elicited a shiver of pleasure from him. He loved when Tony touched him, explored him, and each time felt new and exciting, yet comfortably familiar. Jethro let his mouth move to Tony's collarbone, nibbling in that place he knew would make Tony whine. He groaned this time instead, and Jethro inhaled sharply.

"All mine," he growled. "All mine forever."

Tony nodded fervently as he panted. He loved when Jethro got possessive like that. He'd never felt as wanted as he felt with Jethro, whether in or out of the bedroom, but especially in. There were no barriers between them when they were like this, wrapped up in each other's senses, experiencing each other on a level Tony had never experienced before Jethro. It was the essence of being together, merging, making love.

Tony's hands went to Jethro's shoulders as he felt him travel down his body, feasting on his skin as he went. The firm muscles under his fingers rippled as Jethro slipped his hands under Tony's body and pulled him down the bed a couple of inches towards him. Hot, moist lips travelled back up Tony's torso, and he felt teeth start to graze him.

"Oh, yeah…" he moaned. Jethro took his time scraping his teeth along the skin by Tony's rib, and Tony's legs came around him, locking him in place. "Please, Jethro! Harder?"

That's all that Jethro needed to hear, and his teeth were clamping down on the flesh he'd been teasing.

"Fuck, yes!" Tony yelled, his nails digging into Jethro's back and making him moan around the skin he was sinking his teeth into.

Jethro let go and lapped at the marks he had left, letting the tip of his tongue feel each indentation he'd made. He kissed his way back up across Tony's chest, lavishing attention on Tony's nipples, making sure not to pull his chest hair out with his teeth as he carefully tugged the tender nubs. He was pushed against Tony's groin by the way his legs were wrapped around him, and he groaned before bending to bite Tony's shoulder.

"Oh, God!" Tony said, panting even harder. "Please, Jethro!" he shouted, not even sure what he was begging for.

Jethro relinquished his shoulder, licked the marks like they were in a popsicle, not a man, and then moved to kiss Tony deeply. Tony's arms wrapped around him tightly, holding him to him as their mouths ravaged one another. Jethro reached up, fumbling around on the nightstand for the lube, and then found it, popped the cap open and reached between them to squirt it out.

Tony felt the cool liquid running down his crack and moaned into the kiss. It was such a tease, and Jethro knew it. Ever since the day he'd admitted it, tied to the bed and blindfolded, Jethro had used it to heighten the pressure. He let Jethro go, unwrapping his arms and legs from around him for a moment to allow him to get into position. Seconds later, he felt Jethro's cock poking him and breaching the tight ring of muscle. It barely stung, still fairly stretched from their multiple rounds the day before, and he grew immediately impatient with how slow Jethro was moving. He wrapped his legs back around his waist and pulled him towards him, making his hard cock plunge deep into him.

Both of them moaned at the satisfying feeling it gave them, and Jethro bent down until he was almost nose to nose with Tony. He reached up, brushing his hair out of his face, slicked to his damp forehead and looked into his eyes.

"Is that how you want this?" he asked, his whispers caressing Tony's cheek and lips. "Quick, hard, deep?"

All Tony could do was moan and nod, and Jethro started thrusting deeply into him at such a fast and hard pace that the bed rocked, making the headboard pound against the wall. Tony tried to shift so the angle would feel better, and Jethro pulled his legs from around him, and put them off to the side, rolling Tony halfway over in the process.

Tony's hands went to the rungs in the headboard, and he hung on, as now every one of Jethro's thrusts slid across his prostate, sending a shooting pleasure through him. His cock was wedged between his thigh, his stomach and the mattress, and he only had the merest amount of friction rubbing the head, driving him crazy.

Words drifted from both of their mouths, though neither comprehended what was being said. Jethro had one hand on the bed, the other on Tony's leg as he pushed in and out, pinning Tony down in the process. He lost his rhythm as he felt the orgasm coming at him, and Tony knew that soon, it would be his turn. He was torn between wanting it to last forever, and wanting Jethro to come so he could unfold his body and jerk his own orgasm from him.

Jethro came with an animalistic howl, filling Tony with his warmth. He let his fingers drift to his shaft, milking himself as he pulled out, and then the hand on Tony's legs slid down to pull them apart. Without wasting a moment, he bent and took Tony's head in his mouth, sucking hard and twirling his tongue around it. Tony's gasping moan spurred him on, and he took him further into his mouth, sucking, licking and tasting.

Tony's hand went to Jethro's head, and he pulled slightly on the short strands there, trying his best to give Jethro a warning that the man never heeded. He descended lower, taking Tony's full length down his throat as Tony came. He pulled back, tasting what he could, letting it smear across Tony's head and his own tongue, relishing in the taste and texture.

Tony's hand limply fell from Jethro's head onto his shoulder as he caught his breath. Jethro finally released him, and laid his head on Tony's thigh, panting. Thoughts wouldn't form for a long time. They were lost in the comfort of one another, drifting along their orgasmic high.

Tony finally sighed happily, a wide grin on his face. "I really, really love you Jethro."

"Yeah, me too," Jethro said with a quiet joy, still lost in his fog.

"I really, really need to get in the shower," Tony said, chuckling almost drunkenly, causing Jethro to join in.

"Okay, let's go," Jethro said, slowly rolling off of Tony and to his feet, reaching a hand out to pull Tony up. Tony smacked right into him, chest to chest, and Jethro kissed him lazily.

Tony finally pulled back with a, "Mmmm…" His eyes opened to take in Jethro's blue eyes, staring at him in amazement.

"Come on. We'll get cleaned up and then get some sleep. We both got a busy couple of days ahead of us," Jethro said quietly.

Tony nodded and they headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, they were both in boxers, under a light blanket, the lights off and window open with a warm breeze swaying through the curtains. Jethro fell asleep with his head against Tony's chest almost immediately. Tony laid there for another half an hour thinking about their wedding, and what Vance had said.

_The most important day of my life,_ he thought. _What would be worthy of the most important day of my life? _He looked down at Jethro sleeping against him as his thoughts ran, and kissed his temple. _A wedding worthy of him. _He finally fell asleep, dreaming of the perfect wedding.


	8. Chapter 8

_Uh oh._

As It Seems: Chapter Eight

Tuesday morning was busy in the bullpen with both teams hunkering down on their cases. Gibbs had Ziva and McGee digging into the Ta'anari's connections with the Qureshi faction. He still felt like something was off, but knew it would be foolish not to pursue such an obvious lead, and make sure every possibility was turned inside out.

The case file had arrived for Natalie Jericho's murder, and Abby was already running the DNA analysis on it by time Tony's team got in. Tony made a call to Fornell, asking what it would take to pool their resources for the case. Fornell told him that as soon as they got DNA evidence, to call him and he'd come over so they could go through it. He decided that would work out great so he could sick Elly on him with the idea of the database.

He started in on the paperwork to begin an interagency case, and wrinkled his nose. A year ago, he would never have thought to be asking for help from the Feebs. Now, it was essential, and he found he was grateful for the friendship he had begun developing with Fornell over the past few months. He'd gotten used to having him around, and was glad to find that Jethro had someone in his corner. He was especially glad at that moment to have him in _his_ corner. He knew any other agent he would have pulled in would have yanked the case from them, but with Fornell, they would be able to run this as a joint task.

Two hours into the day, Ziva jumped up from her desk.

"Gibbs! That was my contact. She says that Ali Bak is at his rendezvous point for meeting with _his_ contact, and she currently has eyes on him."

"Where is he?" Gibbs said, getting to his feet.

"A café on Virginia Avenue called Jimmy's Java."

"Do we have enough to bring him in, Boss?" Tim asked skeptically.

"He's wanted for more than just our case. Pick one, call in the warrant, and let's get him. Grab your gear."

Tony stood up, watching them shuffle. Jethro looked over the partition at him.

"Watch your back," Tony said with a small smile. Jethro nodded and returned the smile with a shrug, then turned to join his team at the elevator, both McGee and Ziva with their phones to their ears as they went after warrants and information.

When Tony sat down, he had an IM from Dorney.

NDorneget01: _Are they going after Ali Bak?_

TDiNozzo01: _Yeah. I told Gibbs what we found last night. They've been shuffling through the intel all morning._

Tony chanced a glance at Dorney who looked like he could jump up and down at his desk. He smiled and shook his head.

NDorneget01: _Nice! I was hoping that would help. _

TDiNozzo01: _Me, too. What's even better is that Gibbs didn't kill us for getting involved with his case. That's always a plus. It's not something we'll be making a habit out of. This case has special circumstances. _

NDorneget01: _Understood._

TDiNozzo01: _Good work on the intel. Connected just the right dots. We may not have enough to get him on this case technically, but once he's in custody, the rest of the alphabet can make sure he stays off the streets for good._

NDorneget01: _Good enough for me!_

Tony went back to work, and time crawled. He wanted the DNA results to come back, but he knew that Abby's priority right now was Jethro's case. He typed up the case notes from his cold case files instead, and started highlighting words that he would want to select for the search syntax when the database was up. He told his team what he was doing, and Elly came to the side of his desk, pulling up a stool to go through it with him.

"See, if you select that whole paragraph, we can make a concept note search," he started explaining. "Ned and I were talking about that. We can take that entire line, and tag it with a certain keyword. In this case, you'd highlight the words specific to this bastard's M.O., but then you could also choose a function key, yet to be decided of course, and re-highlight the entire line or paragraph, and then assign it a few keywords that would fit more of a psych profile or a summarization.

"So, for this case, you could highlight words like bleach, cigarette smoke, brunette, but then you'll go back and _re-_highlight the whole paragraph, and add new keywords like cleans up after himself, neat-freak, obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, smoker, things like that. So the first puts the actual words you're highlighting into the database, and the second will put keywords that you think you'd search by if you were looking for something similar."

"That's frickin' brilliant," Parke said from behind them, startling both of them. They'd been so engrossed in what they were doing that they didn't hear him join them. _Everyone_ was startled though when Abby came running up to Tony's desk.

"Where's Gibbs?" she asked urgently.

"He and the team went after Ali Bak like an hour ago. Why?" Tony asked. Abby's panicked face worried him. "Abs?"

"It's not Ali Bak! I didn't find a single one of his fingerprints on anything in the apartment. I finally got the fingerprint results back. There are two sets of prints, and they belong to tenants in the building."

Tony looked at her in disbelief. "James Brand one of those sets?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah? How did you know?"

Tony ran his hand through his hair, a habit he had picked up from Jethro that he wished he hadn't. "He had me go with him to the apartment last night to get a feel for the scene. The guy was staring at me all weird, gave me a bad feeling, so I did a quick run on him. He's got a list of priors." Abby nodded in agreement.

"Yeah! And the other set is from a woman in a _different_ apartment in the building. She's even scarier than he is." Abby moved a couple of things around on her tablet so that the profile of the other intruder came up on the screen. "Amanda Mortaire. She's involved in all sorts of anti-Muslim protests, and was in jail for three years on a conviction for aggravated assault, another year for aggravated menacing, and is on Homeland and FBI's watch-lists because she has written letters and had other contact with Nathan Douglas, the guy that tried to gather supporters to bomb the mosque being built in Houston last year. He's currently serving a fifteen year sentence for that and a whole other list of charges."

"Oh, that's not good," Tony said, picking up his phone to call Jethro.

"Yeah. She's not on the lease, it's in her mom's name, but she did register with the parole board at that address. However, she's in apartment eleven, and Brand is –"

"In apartment nine," Tony finished for her. He waited for the phone to answer, but it went to voicemail. "Damn it!" Tony whispered to himself and hung up. He swiped the lock on his cell, and started texting him instead.

_He's not the guy. Abby got fingerprints back. Brand and some psycho anti-Muslim chick named Amanda Mortaire that lives in the building have their fingerprints all over the apartment._

They all waited in silence together. When Tony's phone finally rang, all five of them jumped back. Dorney bumped into Elly, who reached to hold him up when he almost tripped backwards. Abby smiled at them, and Tony answered looking up at Parke with a grimace.

"Hey."

"Abby's got both their prints. No doubts?" Jethro asked quietly on the other end of the line.

"Yeah. None."

"You busy?"

Tony looked around the group of people with a raised eyebrow. "Not really. Just waiting on the DNA before we can move forward."

"Can you go pick them up?"

Tony got to his feet, and walked through the group towards the back hallway where the bathroom was. "You sure?" he asked, somewhat confused.

"That's the line. I can't cross it, and at this point, Tony, I will." Tony heard the edge to Jethro's voice, and a chill went down his back. "Not going to have them back out on the streets because I can't keep myself in check. I'm going to bring Ali Bak in, question him like we haven't had this conversation, and stall so that McGee can bring in the FBI or CIA to do their thing, whoever wants him. Other than that, this is yours."

Tony nodded. "Okay, Jethro. Whatever you need." Tony heard the sigh of relief on the other end of the phone.

"Thanks, Tony."

"Anytime. Should I tell Vance?"

"Yeah, otherwise when the warrants are faxed to his office he's going to get pissed that he's left out of the loop."

"Okay, on it." Tony looked around to make sure he was alone. "Love you."

"You, too, Tony."

Tony disconnected the call, and headed back into the bullpen. "Elly! Get me warrants for Amanda Mortaire and James Brand! Parke, Dorney, start looking for connections. I want to know what these two have in common. I'll be back in ten, and we're heading out."

"On it, Boss!" Elly said, going back to his computer. Everyone scattered, and Abby watched as Tony practically ran up the stairs to Vance's office to inform him of the change in plans.

He stopped at the door and pointed to it while Pam was on the phone. She nodded, and he went in. He found Vance behind his desk, looking up as Tony approached him.

"Agent DiNozzo. What can I do for you?"

"I'm taking over Gibbs' case. He's on his way in with Ali Bak, but it's not him. The fingerprints just came back. You're about to get warrants for a man and a woman- James Brand and Amanda Mortaire. He has multiple charges of menacing and domestic violence, and she has ties to anti-Islamic groups and is on parole for aggravated assault."

Vance rubbed his temples, his elbows on his desk and nodded. "Okay. What are we doing with Ali Bak?"

"Gibbs is going to drill him until one of the three letters claim him. He's got warrants out for him both here and overseas. They can barter between them for him, but it sounds like Gibbs is going to go ahead as if though we don't know what we know. I'm not sure what he's planning on getting out of him, but he appears to have a reason, and no, I don't know the reason."

"And why are you taking the case?" Vance asked, no antagonism to his voice, just wanting information.

Tony thought for a moment about how to put it, and then took a deep breath. "It's too close to home. They're his friends. He doesn't want anything coming to light in court that could end up getting these bastards off."

Vance watched him closely as he spoke, and found enough of the truth in that to simply nod. "Whatever will make sure these charges stick, do it."

Tony nodded, and turned to leave.

Vance watched him go, wondering what Gibbs was planning on doing with Ali Bak, and what it was going to be like when Tony's team got ahold of Brand and Mortaire. He knew this case was hitting close to home for Gibbs, but he wondered if Tony realized just how much that meant it was hitting close to home for him, too.

AIS—NCIS—AIS—NCIS—AIS

Gibbs got into the car after checking to make sure Ziva and McGee were okay in the other car with Ali Bak. He had pulled his people aside to let them know what Tony had just told him, and what their plans were. They were all in agreement on how the interrogation would go, and if everything went according to plan, they would have an hour with him before the rest of the alphabet swarmed them to claim him as their own.

They made it back to the Yard, and Gibbs gathered his stuff in the bullpen while Tim and Ziva escorted their prisoner to interrogation. Abby appeared at his desk holding a cup of coffee, and he smiled up at her. He dropped his folder and took the cup, drinking deeply from it. She smiled back at him, waiting for him to finish his drink.

"Thanks, Abby," he said. "When did the tables turn? Aren't I supposed to be the one bringing you life in a cup?"

Abby chuckled. "Tony did earlier before he left. He asked me to make sure you had that when you got in."

Gibbs smiled broadly, shaking his head.

"How long ago did they leave?" he asked quietly.

"About half an hour. Right after they left, I got the results back on his cold case." She smiled broadly, and Gibbs leaned in. "It's her."

"Best damned news I've heard all day. He's going to be happy."

"Yeah! I mean, can you imagine? Closing a twenty-five year cold case? How awesome is that?! I'm totally stoked for them."

"Boss?" Tim said, coming into the bullpen. "He's ready whenever you are."

"Alright. Go ahead and put the word out we have him. I'm going to go see what I can do."

Tim nodded and moved to sit behind his desk, unlocking his computer and tapping away.

"If you know he's not the guy that broke into Dina's apartment, then what are you…?" Abby asked, trying to understand what was going on.

"Don't worry about it, Abs." Gibbs leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, then turned to walk back towards interrogation.

Abby turned to look at Tim.

"He's hoping that if he goes after him like it's Dina he was after, the guy will cave and say who he's actually here for," Tim said when he was sure that Gibbs was out of earshot.

"You mean he needs someone to take out his anger on," Abby said with a smile.

Tim shrugged as he kept typing, and Abby got the feeling she was being tuned out.

"Okay! I will let you work. By the way, the test results are back on the cold case," she said. Tim's head snapped up to look at her. "It was Stafford."

"That's fantastic!" he said. "Elly is going to flip out! This just validates the database project."

"I know! So awesome! I'll be in the lab if you need me. Hopefully we'll get to go to the viewing tonight."

"If things work out right, we should have no problems," Tim said, his focus back on the screen in front of him.

Abby bounded away towards the elevator, waving at the Director who was coming down the last couple of steps from MTAC. He cut through the bullpen, stopping at McGee's desk.

"Is Gibbs in with Ali Bak?" he asked. Tim looked up from the computer, freezing.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He's hoping that by attacking him as if going after Dina Ta'anari, he might slip and reveal his real target."

Vance nodded. "And you are…?"

"Informing the FBI and CIA that we have Ali Bak. We figure they'll come in, try to start a war over who has the best reason to take custody of him. We play it out, and then turn him over."

Vance nodded and headed for interrogation. He slipped into observation, watching as Gibbs circled the table. Ziva sat casually in the chair across from the middle aged man they had brought in. He noticed she had unbuttoned her blouse one button lower than she normally would have worn it, and shook his head with a smirk. He knew the tactics well. He watched Gibbs confront Ali Bak, accusing him of being the one to break into the apartment and stealing Dina's journals.

"You tracked her down, knew where she was, and waited until they left to gather the evidence you needed for proof to send back to the Ta'anaris so that they would know you had completed the job!"

"I was never in that place!" The man shouted back at Gibbs, turning to look him in the face. "I never stepped foot near that disgraceful woman! You do not have proof of anything!"

Vance froze on the other side of the glass. "I'll be damned. He _was_ after her."

Ziva and Gibbs looked at each other. That was not the answer they were expecting. All three agents were putting the pieces together in their heads. Vance saw the change come over Gibbs, and shook his head. He knew that Tony was right. This was too close for Gibbs, and he was worried about what would happen next. The look on Gibbs' face wasn't boding well for their case. The struggle for restraint was written across it clear as day, and Vance knew that if _Gibbs_ couldn't mask his emotions, they were headed for dangerous territory.

"Really?" Ziva said, jumping in, aching to egg him on. "That is odd, because the _only_ thing missing were her journals; the books that _she_ had been writing for _years_ as they made their journeys. Three hardbound journals. Why would anyone want them? They would have to mean something to someone in order for them to take them, especially here in the States where not many people know how to read Arabic."

"She should not have been writing them anyway! When her-" he suddenly burst out, leaning over the table towards Ziva, making Gibbs reach forward to grab him by the shoulders and slam him back in his chair.

Vance opened the door to interrogation. All three people looked up at him. He made eye contact with Gibbs, and then nodded for him to leave the room. Gibbs squinted at him, and then walked out. Vance gave it a moment so that Gibbs could make his way to the other side of the glass.

"Go ahead," Vance said. "Finish what you were going to say." The cold threatening tone to his voice was something Ziva hadn't heard before. Then again, she had never seen him in interrogation. "When her… _what_? When her parents get the journals that you paid Brand and Mortaire to steal for you? You figured you would get them to do your dirty work for you."

Gibbs watched from the other side of the glass, and shook his head as Ali Bak's eyes widened.

"You'd start by getting them to get the journals for you. You knew that a break-in would mean we'd eventually go looking for them. Obvious, local suspects. You also knew that Mortaire would do anything at this point not to live in the same building as a Muslim. When you would eventually kill Ta'anari, you knew we'd start looking at Mortaire, and eventually Brand. You'd have your evidence, the job would be done, and you could just slip away into the shadows and off everybody's radar while they took the fall. Sounds perfect."

Ali Bak glared at him.

Vance leaned over his shoulder, speaking quietly near his ear. "You shouldn't trust people on parole though. They talk so much easier when they already know what it's like on the other side of those bars."

Their prisoner shook his head in disgust. "You have no idea what you are playing at here! It does not matter if you have me. They will send more! I have read the books. It is not her parents that want her life! She does not even know who the man is whose life she has taken. She will pay dearly! It does not have to be at my hands. I know that she will pay, and she will taste righteous justice!"

"You underestimate what true family does for those they love," Ziva said with a quiet, lethal rage, making both men turn to look at her as she stood up, leaning over the table so she was only a foot away from Ali Bak, making sure her words hit him in the face. "Her _true_ family, her friends that are by her side, and her friends in this building, will do _whatever_ it takes to protect her! Let them come! We will line them up in the jail cells next to you, if not their deathbeds!" Her voice dropped to a cold level that rivaled Vance's and Gibbs', and Gibbs smiled at her from the other side of the glass, resting his forehead on the window.

"Atta girl," he whispered.

Tim came into the viewing room, confused by what he was seeing. "Boss?" he asked. Gibbs looked over his shoulder at McGee.

"Turns out he _was_ after Dina. He set up Brand and Mortaire to take the fall, getting them to ransack their place and find something he could use as evidence to send back to the scum that contracted him. Try to look into their financials, and get anything interesting to Tony."

Tim nodded and when he was about to open the door, he turned back to Gibbs. "You need anything, Boss?" he asked quietly.

Gibbs turned to him, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth and shook his head. "No. Just… get that stuff for Tony." Tim nodded and left the room. Gibbs turned back to the window where Vance was laying into Ali Bak again, but he stopped listening to what was being said. He'd heard enough. He knew he was going to have to put his friends in protective custody, and he was never going to see them again.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Tony and Dorney executed the arrest warrant for James Brand while Elly and Parke executed the one two doors down and across the hall for Amanda Mortaire. They both happened to be home, and Mortaire was as high as a kite on something. Elly searched the apartment while Parke watched the handcuffed woman from three feet away as she sat in a kitchen chair squirming, trying to rub her nose with her shoulder.

"You're looking for coke," Greg called over his shoulder.

"Come on!" the woman shouted. "What the hell?"

"The twitching, the sniffles. Dead give-away," he said, cocking his head with a shrug.

"I've got allergies!" she yelled.

"Got it!" Elly said. He came back with an evidence bag with a small rectangular mirror, hollowed out ink pen, and a nice dusting of white powder.

"Yeah, allergies," Parke said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

"Does your mom know you're doing coke in her bathroom when she's at work?" Elly said, following Parke to the door as he escorted the woman. "I mean, you're on parole, and she's nice enough to let you come stay with her, and now you're doing coke in her crib? So not cool."

They dragged her out into the hallway to find Dorney leading a handcuffed Brand towards the steps. Brand wasn't making it easy on him, and Tony watched, taking in how well Dorney handled it. He was going to give him a hand, but then he heard the guy say something that sounded like, "Get your hands off me fag!" and so Dorney let him go just as the guy jerked away, which meant Brand went tumbling down the stairs face first. Everyone froze, including Amanda Mortaire, as Brand tumbled down the five stairs to the platform where the stairs changed direction, groaning and cursing.

Dorney turned to Tony and shrugged. "He told me to let him go, so I did. Didn't think he'd jump down the stairs like that."

Tony tried hard to repress the smile, but he couldn't. He shook his head, and opened his mouth to speak, but Elly's wheeze of laughter behind him as he leaned against the wall with both hands as he tried to compose himself drew his attention. He looked at the group around him, taking in the disgusted look on Mortaire's face and Parke's slack-jawed expression, and then shaking his head at Elly again as he tried hard to stop laughing, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Dorney was already on the way down the stairs like nothing happened. "Looks like you don't know how to walk down the stairs by yourself," he said, bending down to help Brand to his feet. "So you're going to have to deal with the fag after all." Tony and Parke froze again, then exchanged stunned glances, wondering who they just watched walk away with then man in handcuffs. Elly squeezed past them, bouncing down the stairs, his fist pumping the air in front of his chest.

Elly and Dorney had Brand in the backseat of one car as Tony and Parke emerged from the building with the strung out Mortaire. They put her in the backseat of the other, and as they closed the door, Tony felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He reached for it and saw the picture of him and Jethro at the bar on St. Patrick's day pop up. He smiled, and answered.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey. Did you get 'em?"

"Yeah. Just buckled them in. What's up?"

"We got a problem."

Tony looked at his team that had gathered around him, a confused look on his face. "What kind of problem?" He heard Jethro sigh, and knew it wasn't going to be good.

"Ali Bak _was_ after Dina."

"Uhh… wow. Okay?" Tony said, not sure what to make of that.

"He paid your creeps to break in and steal the journals so that he could have some evidence to send back to his contractor in Iraq. A grand each, and the promise that if they did this for him, he could make sure our three would leave the building."

Tony turned and looked at the woman in the car next to him, and then at the man in the car a few feet away, shaking his head. "That's-"

"It gets worse, Tony."

Tony heard the exhaustion in Jethro's voice, and he felt his heart break. He turned to walk away from the group, knowing that their eyes were still on him.

"What's wrong, Jethro? Are you okay?"

"It wasn't Dina's family that sent Ali Bak after her."

"Okay, then who was it?"

"It was the Qureshi faction themselves. The man Dina killed was their second in command, Turhan Ubaydah. I don't know yet how they know it was her, but they do, and Ali Bak had the journals, so he read them…" Jethro trailed off.

Tony closed his eyes.

"They want her dead, Tony."

Tony swallowed hard. "They won't ever get close enough, Jethro," he said.

"Yeah, sure," Jethro said bitterly, and with more than a little sarcasm. "They got this close this time, and we had no idea. What's going to keep-"

"Jethro!" Tony practically shouted, cutting off the frustrated anger on the other end of the phone. "Listen to me. We didn't know before that the Qureshi knew who had taken out their number two. We know that now. We're aware of the threat, and we _will_ keep them safe. Hell, if they have to come live in our basement, they _will_ be protected. Let's take care of the current threat, and then we'll take it from there."

He heard Jethro's exasperated sigh on the other end of the phone, and it took everything in him not to call a Decaf Timeout before he could lose his cool. He tried to remember why this case was so sensitive, but it hit a nerve in Tony he didn't realize was so raw, and he couldn't help but ask himself if Jethro trusted him to take care of this as much as he originally thought he did.

"Look, you turned the case over to me for a reason. I'll pull you in if I need you, but for now, stay clear of it. I'm on my way back to the Yard. We'll talk when I get there. Until then, just try to keep your head on straight." Tony turned back to his team, waiting until he heard some sign of acceptance from Jethro. The growl before the click in his ear startled him. He looked at his phone, dialing Jethro again.

He picked up with a "What do you want?"

"Love you, too, ya big decaffeinated jerk!" He hung the phone up as he neared his team, and they all looked at him startled.

"What?" he barked, and watched them exchange looks with one another, but no one dared to say anything. "Ali Bak bought these two off to break into the apartment and steal the journals."

"Oh, that sneaky bastard!" Dorney said, earning looks from everyone on the team. "That means he was going to let them take the fall for… wish I could push _him_ down the stairs." He looked around him, not focusing on anything as he pieced together what he suspected the bounty hunter's plans were.

"Don't want to think about that. We got them all in time, and they're safe. Let's concentrate on the task at hand for now. When we get them booked we can talk about what's next." Tony got into the car with Mortaire, and Parke got in next to him leaving Dorney and Elly to ride with Brand.

"Oh, boy. This should be fun," Dorney said on the way back to the car.

"You handled him just fine a few minutes ago," Elly said with a smirk.

"Thanks, but I'm talking about Boss and Gibbs fighting about the case."

"Oh, yeah. That's going to suck money balls."

Dorney bent forward over the top of the car before he got in. "Yeah, it really is. I vote we hide in Abby's lab until the dust settles, and the DNA comes back for the cold case."

"I like that plan! Fully support that plan," Elly said before sliding in on the passenger side.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Jethro stared at his phone in shock. "Decaffeinated my ass!" he said, tossing the phone on his desk.

Tim came into the bullpen just in time to witness it, and slowly backed out. He went down the side aisle and into the break room instead, leaving Gibbs alone at his desk.

Jethro sat there thinking about it, going over the conversation in his head again. He wasn't sure how it had turned so quickly. He had started off calling to give Tony information, but instead unloaded on him, which he knew he could do with Tony. It wasn't until he had voiced his fear that they weren't going to be able to keep them safe that Tony got touchy with him. That's when he got grumbly. In his opinion though, they were both "decaffeinated".

He knew that they'd been doing too well at staying out of each other's way at work. This case was crossing more personal boundaries than he wanted to think about. Vance had just taken over his interrogation, Tony was taking over his case and told him to butt the hell out, and he was strangely emotional about the idea of Talia, Malek and Dina being sent somewhere that he'd never be able to see them again. They hadn't been in contact for years, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew they were out there, reachable, and as Tony kept pointing out, his friends.

Something else Tony had said to him sank to the bottom of his stomach and sat there like a rock. "He doesn't want to see me lose any more friends," he whispered. _Been too many, way too many. Not sure how many more I can take. _

He looked up as he saw McGee and Ziva walk into the bullpen together with snacks from the vending machine. They were talking quietly with one another, and it made him look down at his desk. He thought of Easter at the house with everyone gathered around. Life was certainly different now than when he met Malek, and then Dina and Talia. There were a lot more people in his life now that he could depend on, that he trusted, and he liked to think that his friends list had grown substantially.

"Did someone take his coffee from him?" he suddenly heard a familiar voice say. His eyes travelled up to find Fornell standing in the middle of his bullpen, looking at him suspiciously. He raised an eyebrow at just how closely that aligned with Tony's "decaffeinated jerk" comment.

"Tobias," he greeted suspiciously.

"You got Ali Bak, and I want him."

"You'll have to talk to Tony about it. It's not my case," he said with a slight shrug.

Fornell raised an eyebrow at him. "Where is DiNozzo anyway?" he asked, looking around.

"Went to go pick up Ali Bak's paid henchmen. Should be here soon."

"Got enough time for some coffee?" Fornell asked, knowing there was more to this story he needed to know.

"Yeah," Gibbs said, getting to his feet. He grabbed his gun and badge, and nodded for Fornell to move towards the elevator.

"If any of those CIA bastards try to get their hands on Ali Bak," Fornell said, addressing McGee and Ziva, "tie the prick to a chair and lock him in the closet. He's mine, and I've got the paperwork to prove it."

"Will do," McGee said, not looking up from his computer where he was pretending to work to avoid eye contact with his boss.

Gibbs and Fornell headed downstairs in the elevator.

"So what happened, Jethro?" Fornell asked quietly.

"It's too close. I turned it over."

"Really? I know how you feel about them, but too close to work the case?"

"Don't need any grief about it, Tobias."

"Not giving you any, just surprised. If it was Tony or your team, you'd be all over this thing, breaking more balls than our ex-wife's lawyer."

"There's no right way to do this one. If I lose my cool for even a minute, it could come back to bite us all in the ass, and we'll lose these bastards on a technicality. I'm _not_ going to let that happen."

They got their coffee, and Jethro was surprised when Fornell moved to sit on the same spot on the wall that Tony liked to sit at. He joined him, and sat with a sigh, knowing Fornell had more to say about it.

"You know what I think," Fornell said quietly, looking up at Jethro, and then out across the square. "I think you're turning it over because you _can_. You've never had someone you could trust with something like this in a position to do it. You know DiNozzo will not only do it, but make heads roll along the way because it means so much to you."

"He…" Jethro shook his head, succumbing to the fact that he was going to have to talk about this. "He doesn't know _exactly_ why they mean so much to me."

"You haven't told him?" Fornell asked in disbelief.

"It hasn't really come up. The night we all went to dinner, discussion was pretty lighthearted, and we had bigger things to worry about."

"Oh, yeah- Jacobs. Creepy little twit."

Jethro nodded, raising his cup to his lips.

"Well, I think it's time you told him."

Jethro shook his head no. "If I tell him, it will mean putting even more pressure on him, and increases the bias. I can't let that happen. He's gotta do this as unbiased as possible."

"Jethro, he's engaged to you! There's no less bias between him and this case than what you have. Even before the two of you got together like you are now, he's always been overprotective of you. There's nothing he won't do at this point to make sure this goes down the way _you_ need it to go down."

Jethro closed his eyes knowing that was the truth. "He's going to have to put them in protective custody to keep them safe. No way around that now that we know half of the Qureshi faction is going to be sending people after her."

"Yeah, that's what McGee said."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him.

"He… kinda emailed me and told me what had happened."

Gibbs chuckled, and shook his head.

"He also _kinda_ didn't tell the CIA you have Ali Bak," Fornell said with a shrug. "But I swore to him I wouldn't let you kill him, so ya know, try not to for me. Hate to break that kinda promise to someone ballsy enough to go behind your back like that."

"Who's going behind whose back?" Tony suddenly said.

They looked up to find him standing there, his hands in his pockets.

"McGee going behind Gibbs'."

Tony nodded. "Can I talk to my hubby alone for a few?" he asked, looking more at Jethro than Fornell.

"Hubby?" Fornell said, getting to his feet with a raised eyebrow. "You must be in the doghouse."

"Maybe a little," Tony said with a shy smile at Jethro and a shrug.

Fornell nodded. "I think I'm just gonna… you know… warn McGee, you know… yeah." He turned around and left Tony and Jethro alone.

"Didn't mean to come off as such an ass," Tony said, sitting down in the spot Fornell had just vacated.

"Me, too," Jethro said, handing Tony his cup of coffee to take a drink of. Tony took it with a smile, and gulped some of the bitter liquid down.

"I think we need to just put it out there right now that there really is no line between the personal and professional on this one, Jethro. It's personal. It's personal for us, it's personal for our teams, it's personal for our friends. It's okay sometimes to let the personal passion fuel us, we just need to pay extra special attention to staying by the book, and know when to back off."

Jethro looked at Tony. "You're going to have to put them into the program."

Tony looked at Jethro in disbelief. "Hell no I won't!"

"Yeah, you are, Tony. There's no other way to keep them safe."

"Yeah, there is! There's plenty of other ways. I meant what I said earlier- they aren't going anywhere. If they have to come stay with us in order to stay safe, they will. It doesn't matter, we don't have to make the decision right now. We'll assess the situation, and if we have to bring down the entire damn Qureshi faction, we will."

Jethro sighed, shaking his head.

"Don't doubt me, Jethro." Tony got to his feet, and stood in front of him. "If that's what we need to do, we will."

Jethro looked up and met Tony's eyes. "I don't doubt you're _capable_ of it, Tony. The question is, what will it take? Yeah, _they'll_ be safe, but at what cost?"

"Like I said before, what cost is too much for a friend? If it was me, if it was Ziva, McGee, one of my guys, what would we be doing? Hell, we got our asses blown up two months ago for the younger foster brother of my brand new team member. What do you think I'd do for you and your friends?"

"Too much."

Tony looked at him, and he started to get the feeling there was something that went beyond what was being said going on below the surface.

"What's going on in there, Jethro?" he asked quietly, sitting on the wall next to him a little closer than he probably should have.

Jethro thought about what Tobias had said, and decided there wasn't going to be a picture perfect time to tell Tony about what his friendship with Dina, Talia and Malek meant to him, so now was as good as any.

"When I met them, the op I was on in Kabul, I…" he took a deep breath. "I wasn't expecting to come back from that, Tony." He looked up at his lover's eyes, and saw the confusion in them. "We pretty much expected it to be a one way mission, and I had volunteered for it."

"What?" Tony asked in disbelief.

Jethro took another deep breath. "I'd just divorced Diane, I was depressed, angry, bitter, and we needed the intel I was going after more than we needed the location of the anthrax in March. I was willing, and my superiors at the time were willing, and I went for it. Malek was after the same information, though we didn't know it, and we got tangled up in each other's mess.

"He was willing to fight his way out, though. He expected to come out of it alive, no matter how grim the chances, because he had people he cared about and loved waiting for him on the other end of that mission. So, when Dina and Talia joined us, and we had to fight our way out of there together, we did.

"I suddenly wasn't alone anymore. We watched out for each other, and we got out of there. It was an impossible situation, and they not only made it possible, but made me laugh doing it. They gave me back my sense of purpose, my reason to live. They were my friends when I felt like I didn't have anyone on my side at all. Hell, even Morrow was willing to send me off on a one way mission to hell, and I…" He trailed off.

Tony looked at him with wide eyes, a slack jaw, and a face that was getting paler by the second.

"Tony, everyone needs _someone_ on the other side, counting on them, waiting for them, believing in them, trusting them to carry on, to make it. You know everything it's taken for me to get to where you and I are now. Dina, Talia, Malek… they mean a hell of a lot to me, but you've easily become the most important person in my life. I know you can take care of yourself, but don't put yourself in harm's way for this. You're that person for me that's waiting on the other side of every messed up situation on every damned day. Losing you… that's a cost I'm not willing to pay."

"Jethro," Tony said softly. "You know that most of this fight is going to be done in front of an MTAC wall. I'm not running off to Iraq. Hell, there are reasons why you always take McGee with you when you go instead of me." Tony tried to lighten the tension, but Jethro remained focused.

"The Qureshi were able to get that close to us, that close to taking Dina out, without us even knowing they were after her. We simply don't know who is going to come next, what they are capable of, and who they will target. Putting them in hiding is the safest thing for everyone."

Tony shook his head. "It may be the easiest solution, but it's not the best solution, and it's premature. Like I said, let my team do what we can to figure out what is next on their agenda. We shouldn't be moving our pieces until we know more information about our opponent."

Jethro took a deep breath, locking eyes with Tony. "Can't lose you, Tony. Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

"Me?" Tony said with a smile. "Never."

Jethro rolled his eyes and got up, walking towards the building. Tony jumped up to go after him, and with a hand on his shoulder, turned him towards stairwell door to the garage rather than the main entrance. Jethro saw that Tony looked pissed and decided to follow his direction, concerned about what he was walking into. They went through the door and down the stairs until they got to the supply closet at the bottom. Tony opened the door and Jethro eyed him suspiciously as he entered, Tony following and closing the door behind him. He didn't wait for it to so much as latch before he turned and laid into Jethro.

"I need you to at least _try_ to act like you trust me right now! Give me a little credit, Jethro. Been doing this for a while, and I think I may know a little something about watching my back, and a little more about watching other people's, after all, I've been watching yours for years. I didn't get to where I am just because we got together, and I needed somewhere to go. I've _earned_ where I'm at, and when it comes to this case, I'm more than qualified to handle it." He took a deep breath, trying to rein in his temper.

"I know you're scared because you've lost so much, but there is _nothing_ about this case that's any more dangerous than any other. I need you to trust me with this just as much as you'd trust me on any other case I walk out of those doors on. Have a little faith in me, and let me to work this out."

"I do trust you!"

"No, you don't! You think I'm going to go out there and run into this headfirst without thinking and get myself killed! I'm not you, Jethro!"

The silence that engulfed the room was suffocating. The worst part for both of them was that it was true, and nothing could be unsaid.

"I have to go interrogate Brand and Mortaire. She's high as a kite, so I need to go while I can take advantage of that. I'll see you at home." Tony turned around and opened the door, slamming it behind him, leaving Jethro alone in the closet.


	9. Chapter 9

_Am I the only one that's extremely happy the holidays are finally over? Yeesh! I didn't even get to respond to reviews yet for the last chapter! Thank you all for the feedback and love :) And Bella- I hope the end of this chapter meets your qualifications for make-up sex! ;) Happy reading!_

As It Seems: Chapter Nine

Jethro sat heavily on a bucket of salt in the supply closet, running his hand through his hair. He was angry, hurt, confused, ashamed, worried and frustrated. He felt indignant, yet chastised, by Tony's comment about not being him. What he hated most was that Tony was right. No matter how uncalled for he felt the outburst was, he was right.

He was used to running into things he shouldn't. After all, he had just told Tony that he had once gone on what he figured was going to be a suicide mission. It wasn't that he didn't think through his actions, he just weighed the results differently, always putting priorities at the top that most people didn't. His priorities had changed in the past few months though, and he knew that Tony was aware of it. That's what made him so angry. Tony knew exactly how much he was changing, yet threw that back at him anyway.

At the same time, he was worried. Did Tony really think he didn't trust him? He'd turned his case over to him! How could he show any more trust than that? He wouldn't have turned it over to anyone else. Certainly not Balboa, and _definitely_ not the CIA. It would take a direct order from Vance to have turned it over to even Fornell, but he had come to Tony and given him the case. He knew that if he had to deal with such a bigoted and discriminate suspect right now, he would have put his fist through their face, or at least a wall or two

He knew Tony could take it, though. He'd use his words, his knack for twisting _other_ people's words around on them, and tie their brain in a knot. Tony would keep him in the loop, let him know what was going on, and handle it expertly, just how he had taught him, only with his own… and that when Jethro groaned.

_He probably thinks I've given it to him so I can play puppet master after I made the protection comment. I just don't want him hurt, can't he see that?_

Tony's words came back at him. "_I need you to trust me with this just as much as you'd trust me on any other case I walk out of those doors on. Have a little faith in me…"_

He got up from the bucket, shaking his head at himself, and then headed up the stairs to the bullpen. He opened the door as quietly as he could, and looked over at his team. McGee was sitting at his desk, and Fornell was leaning back in Tony's old seat. Ziva sat across from him laughing at something being said, and Jethro decided he didn't want to be around them yet.

His gaze drifted down the hall, and he meandered towards interrogation. He enjoyed watching Tony in his element, and knew he'd feel better after watching Tony work. He tried to sneak into observation, but the light that flooded in drew the attention of Dorneget and Parke who were watching the interrogation of Amanda Mortaire. He nodded a greeting, and stood behind them, taking in the scene until his eyes settled on Tony.

Tony felt like he was going through the interrogation in a blur. He wanted it over with so he could move on. Amanda Mortaire was sitting up ramrod straight, agitated now that she had come down from her high, and Tony noticed that she kept looking at the door like she was going to try and make an escape. He almost wanted her to so that he would have a reason to cuff her to the table. Her fidgeting wasn't helping his nerves.

He knew that Elly was concerned about him. The weird look he was getting once in a while when Mortaire's attention was elsewhere told him he wasn't hiding his anger well. He stood off to the side, watching Elly interject much more calmly, slowing things down. He knew he had to pull himself together. To the outsider, it was nothing, but to those who were used to watching him in an interrogation, there was obvious something was under his skin.

"He was using you," Elly said. "The grand was nothing to him. He has unlimited resources at his disposal, and dispose of them he does. He was going to kill your neighbors, and let the blame fall on you two."

"Yeah right," Mortaire spit back, sitting back in the chair and crossing her arms.

"Hmmm… let's see," Tony said, stepping behind her. "You've got your hands in all sorts of anti-Islamic plots, have attacked a Muslim before, and are known for hateful protests. Oh, and your fingerprints are all over the crime scene from when you broke in to steal the journals. I wonder who we would have come looking for _first _when there was a heinous honor killing, considering they tend to look just like a hate crime_._"

"Oh! Oh! I know!" Elly said, raising his hand and waving it excitedly. "Boss! I know this one!"

Tony smiled, appreciating the break in tension. "Yes, how about the over-eager gentleman in the front?"

Elly beamed, and pointed at Mortaire. "That chick right there! The one with that strung out, I-Just-Snorted-A-Pound-Of-Coke look, and the hate-filled past, and-and-and the record of violent hate crimes and harassment!"

"Very good, Agent Critten!" Tony said as he came around the table to stand next to his agent, arms crossed as he looked across the table. "You're going back to jail. This time, you'll be doing serious time. Right now we have you for Breaking and Entering, theft, and possession of an illegal substance. It's up to you whether or not you want to add Conspiracy to Commit Murder."

"Whoa! Hold on! I wasn't gonna kill nobody! Not even those f-"

"Hey!" Elly snapped, slamming his hands down on the table, startling both Mortaire and Tony. "Spouting your bigoted bullshit certainly isn't going to win you any favors from anybody, so do us all a favor, and keep your mouth shut if that's all you've got to say."

Tony had to fight back a smile at the fire Elly suddenly had brought to the table. Parke, Dorney and Jethro didn't have to though, so they exchanged their looks of admiration with one another.

"Might have helped us sink her though if we could have gotten her racist remarks on camera," Parke said quietly.

Jethro shook his head. "It'll all come out on the stand anyway. Her type won't be able to keep that to herself when she's got an audience."

"True," Dorney muttered, his eyes already back on the interrogation. Jethro picked up on the tone of Dorneget's voice and saw the was his expression suddenly fell. He wondered for a moment what his story was, but was drawn back to the interrogation. He made a mental note to ask Tony if he knew.

"I wasn't going to help nobody kill anybody!" Mortaire stated again. "Just needed the cash."

"For what? Your coke?" Elly asked sarcastically, his arms crossing as he sat back in the chair. Tony stepped back, letting him roll a minute, seeing how he went about it.

Mortaire sighed. "That was a treat. I had fifty left over when everything else was done, so I thought I'd, ya know, unwind a little."

"A treat? Cakepops from Starbucks is a _treat_. Top shelf liquor is a _treat. _Cocaine? Not so much. So where did the rest of the grand go?" he asked, his eyes locked on Mortaire's face, carefully watching her expressions and body language for lies like Parke had taught him.

"I had some business to take care of."

"Business? What kind of business?"

"Helped a friend with some things, that's all." Everyone watching saw how uncomfortable she suddenly got, and noticed how quiet she was getting. Elly did too, and he pushed gently.

"Must be a pretty good friend if you get a grand, and your first thought isn't to get your own place, or some clothes that actually fit so you can at least try to find work."

"He is."

Tony's eyes flicked to Elly to see if he had picked up on the pronoun, but Elly's eyes remained on Mortaire.

"Sounds like it since you're dropping more than 900 bucks on him. Moving fast. Out four months and you already have a pimp you owe that much too? Or was that from before your incarceration?" Elly schooled himself, expecting an outburst. He knew she wasn't hooking, at least not yet, but he figured it would be the best way to poke the beast, and he was right.

"Hell no, I ain't got no pimp! What the fuck you think I am? Some kinda whore? No! I don't think so! Nathan respects me! We have a lot in common, share the same ideas. He gets me."

"Ideals, not ideas," Elly said condescendingly, intentionally and successfully pushing her buttons even further as he leaned forward across the table seriously. "And the only thing he _gets you_, is _getting you_ to be another one of his anti-Islamic hate-cult followers that funds his terrorist projects."

Tony nodded the slightest, proud of Elly for making the connection. He watched Elly stare Mortaire down as she turned white and started to sweat, her chest heaving in panicked breaths.

"This is what I suggest," Elly said quietly, leaning back in his chair, his left hand on the table top twirling a pen. "Cop to the drugs, to the B and E, and offer up anything and everything you know about Nathan Douglas' plans in exchange for a little leniency for the Conspiracy to Commit Murder charges. And then, when you're doing your cushy six year sentence, educate yourself a little on why you're a moron for treating people you don't know a damned thing about like shit. Otherwise, your _friend_ is going to land you in some place a lot worse than prison when we go after you for charges associated with homegrown terrorism."

Mortaire swallowed hard, and Tony thought she might actually pass out. Behind the glass, Parke and Dorney exchanged a silent fist bump and smirks, proud of their teammate.

Jethro had at first been concerned at how Tony had dropped back and let his young agent take over, but he was impressed that Critten had put her in her place so easily. He'd come in to watch Tony tear Mortaire a new one, but it had just proved that Tony really did know what he was doing, even if it was different than what he would have done himself. He decided he had better leave before Tony found him in there, and got the wrong idea about why he had come to watch him.

As soon as he was gone, Parke looked over at Dorney.

"What was that about?" Dorney wondered aloud.

"Don't know, and I am planning on staying as far away from it as possible," Parke said quietly. "You ready to take on Brand?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Don't think I can top Elly just now."

"You don't have to," Parke coached. "You are in there as support. Your presence alone will piss him off, and that is really what Tony is going to need. Guys tend to let more slip when they are angry and uncomfortable. You're there to provoke silently. You saw today just how much he will destroy himself when you know just when to let go." He smirked and his eyes met Dorney's, which twinkled with mischief.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but maybe I should go in just in case he can't figure out how to sit in his chair safely without falling over on his face." His deadpan tone made Parke snicker.

"You've been hanging out with us too much," he commented.

"No, I think it's just about the right amount," Dorney said rather seriously. "It's just enough to give a damn, while being just enough to learn when not to. Just about perfect."

Parke's hand came up to clasp Dorney's shoulder as he shook his head with a bright smile. "Do you think they're going to get any real information out of her about Nathan Douglas?" he asked.

"Nathan Douglas is known for eliciting women's assistance from a website he has access to from prison. The FBI has made sure that the prison officials know to keep allowing him access because they're tracking him. He gets them to send money to his "hate-cult", as Elly called them, and then they use the money to fund their "special projects". When they found out he was planning on bombing the construction site for the mosque, he ranted his guilt. He's a nutjob, but unfortunately, he's a charismatic nutjob.

"It's hard to think that people who live in a country founded by ancestors escaping religious persecution would harbor such idiots, but here they are. People are such a letdown. In this case alone, we're dealing with zealots, homophobes, racists, and just plain idiots. Just how much hatred can you pack into a person?"

Parke had turned his attention on Dorneget, reading his body language as he spoke. He saw a different man there than he had known before the case. He was stronger, more confident, but he saw a man that had seen great sadness, and he knew in that moment that Ned had seen more than his fair share of bigotry, and probably had been through things he would never know about. The haunted look in his eyes told him, and yet the sadness in them, void of violent anger, told him more about the man than anything he had ever witnessed. He'd been through hell, but he hadn't let the hatred consume him.

It was humbling, and he looked down at the floor, crossing his arms as he realized that he wasn't that strong. He looked up and into Mortaire's red eyes, and he knew that he felt hatred towards her because of her hatred towards others. He wasn't strong enough to look past the anger to try and figure out why she was the way she was, why she thought the way she did, and to find enough compassion to fix and heal the parts of her so damaged that they got stuck focusing on hating someone so much. Who had taught her to hate so vehemently? Why?

He had asked himself so many times in his line of work why people committed the crimes they did, and what sociological and psychological aspects had instigated their crimes, but he realized that when the answer came down to simple hatred of someone because they had belonged to a protected group, his searching had stopped there. Should he look further? The answers would never excuse the crimes, but could a person honestly be rehabilitated if those issues weren't uncovered, if those mental wounds weren't treated?

He watched Dorney's face in the reflection on the glass. How did some turn into cops and agents that held the compassion to keep looking for the good in people, in the world around them, expecting to find it enough that it saddened them when it didn't? And how did some turn into the Amanda Mortaires of the world? Six years of college, pulling massive course loads, and working with the prison system, had made him fairly well educated on the results of that kind of hatred, but for the first time, he wanted to know what caused it. That's why he had decided to become an agent. He wanted to stop the crimes _before_ they happened, not deal with the aftermath when someone was already incarcerated.

He wished he was strong enough to care about those prisoners he had worked with to find the root of their spite, but he knew that at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to see Mortaire suffer for her hatred, and until he could let go of that, he wasn't going to ever be able to claim to be as strong as the man next to him that looked on with pity and disheartened confusion instead of the hatred and violence he felt within himself.

Twenty minutes later, Dorney was standing outside of the door to the other interrogation room, listening to Tony's instructions. He nodded and took a deep breath. According to Mortaire, it was Brand that had the initial contact with Ali Bak. They had enough evidence to sink him, but they needed to make sure the case against Ali Bak was solid.

Dorney clung to his folder and opened the door, going in and sitting across from Brand alone while Tony went into observation. Parke and Elly looked at Tony in surprised confusion when he joined them.

"Boss?" Elly asked, looking back and forth between the scene unfolding before them and Tony.

"Just watch," Tony said with a smirk.

Dorney thought about what Elly had suggested to him on the way to the range. _Act _like the agent he wanted to be, because he was one. He dropped the file folder on the table, and took the chair across from Brand with a condescending chuff and the shake of his head. He said nothing, simply staring at the jerk across from him for a long couple of minutes.

"You got something you wanna say to me?" Brand asked with as much attitude as possible with his hands cuffed to a bolted down table.

"Not really," Dorney said. "You're not worth my breath, but my boss wants me to clarify a few details of this case with you, so I guess I have to, but no- I don't have a damned thing I _want_ to say to you." He watched Brand roll his eyes, and flipped his folder open.

"You're looking at time for Breaking and Entering, Theft, and Conspiracy to Commit Murder. Ther-"

"Conspiracy to do _what?!_" Brand shouted.

"To Commit Murder," Dorney annunciated. "You know, the little plan Ali Bak had to kill the residents of the apartment you broke into once he had proof that they were his targets- proof that you supplied to him."

"I don't know nothing about no murder! We were just supposed to go in, trash the place, and take something from them so he could figure out if the person he was looking for lived there."

"_Sure_ you didn't," Dorney said quietly, flipping through the folder as if though he wasn't paying any attention. "As I was saying, you're facing-"

"Did you just hear what I told you, or are you deaf?" Brand ranted in disbelief.

"Oh, I can hear fine. I simply don't believe a word that comes from your mouth. I mean, who would be so stupid that they wouldn't wear some type of gloves to break into someone's house? Especially with priors? Yeah, there's more going on here."

Brand groaned. "We were just supposed to scare them! Ya know, so they'd move out. It was a win-win for all parties involved. This guy would get something he wanted, we'd get a grand cash and get rid of the unwanted vermin in the building. Simple as that! No murder involved!"

Dorney looked up at him with the most condescending look he could muster. "Are you really that stupid? Really?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You didn't stop for a moment and wonder _why_ he needed something of theirs? You didn't ask yourself why he wanted this stuff so badly?"

Brand shrugged a little, looking confused. "I didn't know, didn't care to find out. What I don't know can't hurt me, ya know? We'd get what we needed, he'd get what he needed, and we'd all go our separate ways."

"Sooo… you didn't know this guy was a contract killer?"

Brand shook his head no, and Dorney held up a finger.

"Let me show you something." He pulled out photos from the back of the file on Ali Bak, and laid them out across the table. They were the gruesome remains of his previous kills. "_This_- this is what that man does to people."

He watched as Brand swallowed and tried to look away from the photos and the horror they portrayed. When Dorneget realized he had looked away, he decided to describe what had happened to each of them for him.

"This woman was burned. He poured gasoline on her, over and over again, saturating her, letting the fluid itself burn into her skin, and then he set her on fire, put her out, and then set her on fire again. And this one here, well, it's pretty obvious that he stripped the skin off her body. And this one was classic Ali Bak. He has a thing for carving people up for hours before they finally beg for death. At that point he pours bleach over their bodies until it enters the wounds and kills them from toxicity."

He witnessed Brand shudder, and was glad he had gotten his attention. He was extremely proud of his acting job, and he was waiting for Tony to barge in any minute to take over like he said he would, but it never happened, so he kept going.

"What you don't know might not hurt _you_, but did you stop to think that maybe it would hurt someone else? The items you stole were evidence for him that he had the right people. He was going to go in after you, murder them in these kinds of gruesome ways, and then let you two dumbasses take the fall for it, and you would have, because you were too stupid to wear gloves. He knew we'd come looking for Mortaire because she has a history with anti-Islamic groups, and she would drag you into it.

"You were setting up three innocent people, people that have been crucial and instrumental to obtaining information needed to protect the American people and our troops overseas, setting them up for horribly gruesome deaths. But, nah, you didn't think about it. It was _just_ a grand, and they were _just_ Muslims living in your building." Dorney swept the pictures up into the folder, and got to his feet.

"How the hell was I supposed-" Brand started, trying to defend himself.

"You know what makes me sick," Dorney said, no longer acting but feeling his anger and his own passion rising in him until he was practically yelling. "You do! You and your blind hatred for those that are different than you, when _you're_ the problem. You don't give a _damn_ about anyone but yourself and your own narrow-minded worldview. Your homophobic bitching at the apartment building, your consideration of the people around you as tools, your blatant hatred and discrimination of three people who have put their _lives_ on the line time and time again for what's right, what's just. You make me sick, and I hope you go down with Ali Bak and Mortaire as they sit in prison cells for the rest of their lives for what they've done. You're a horrible excuse for a human being." Dorney went to the door and opened it, then turned around. "And by the way, being an _idiot_ isn't a defense in court!"

He slammed the door behind him and went straight for the bullpen, dropping his folder down on his desk and slamming his desk drawer as he got his things and stormed out for some air.

Gibbs, Tim and Ziva all witnessed it, and shared looks with one another. Gibbs looked at his desk and thought for a moment, then grabbed his gun and badge, tucking them in. "Going for coffee," he said, breezing through the bullpen as he took off down the stairs just as Tony had after Malek the day before. He knew that Tony would jump on him and take it the wrong way that he was interfering, but Tony's team meant everything to Tony, and Tony's happiness meant everything to him. The idea that Dorneget, of all people, was storming out was a bad sign, and he felt like he needed to cut it off at the pass.

He scanned the square, and he saw Ned sitting on a bench near a statue halfway up the hill. He stopped at the coffee barista and grabbed two cups. He took a handful of sugar and a couple of creams with him, and approached Dorney cautiously. He sat next to him, and handed him the cup.

Ned took it with a faint smile, confused as to why Gibbs was suddenly sitting next to him and handing him coffee. He dumped some of the sugar and a creamer in, and replaced the lid, tucking the sugar papers in his pocket. It was kind of hot for coffee, and he was still kind of hot under the collar, but it was such an odd gesture that he went ahead and took a drink.

"Messy case," Gibbs prompted, unsure of exactly how to ask what had just happened.

"Yeah, it is. Full of racists and homophobic bigots," Dorney spit out before he could stop himself. "How do people become such idiots, Agent Gibbs?" he asked as he shook his head and took a drink of his coffee.

"Fair question, but I don't have an answer for you. What happened?" he asked.

"Just interrogated Brand, the skinhead that had broken into your friends' apartment. Neither of them knew Ali Bak's intentions were so violent. Mortaire's a hateful bigot, and Brand is just stupid to the core. There's more brains in this cup of coffee than in that man's head. They never even considered that Ali Bak was going to kill them. Never even questioned why he needed the tokens." He shook his head, staring across the yard. "Idiots."

"Do you think it would have made a difference if they knew?" Gibbs asked.

"If Brand knew, I think it might have. Mortaire? No, she would have still done it, and she probably would have done worse than what she did. She's sick, he's stupid, they're the perfect match."

Gibbs thought about the other aspect that was mentioned but not touched. "Word around the office is Brand tripped and fell down the steps earlier. Maybe he suffered some brain damage and just doesn't remember his discussion with Ali Bak so clearly."

Dorney turned his eyes to meet Gibbs', and Gibbs was surprised to find a reproving look in them. Gibbs lifted his hands up with a shrug. "Just what I heard."

"Boss had me escorting the dick to the car, and he was struggling. He decided to get personal with his statements, and shouted for "the fag" to let him go, so…"

Gibbs nodded with a smirk. "You let him go."

"Yeah, but he couldn't walk on his own apparently, and fell down the steps." Dorney shrugged as if it were the simple truth.

Gibbs turned his head up to the blue sky streaked with orange and pink clouds that marked the early summer evening. He smiled despite himself, and then turned back to Dorney. "He didn't… fall down any steps in interrogation did he?"

Dorney gave him another reproachful look. "No. He copped to the breaking and entering and theft when he tried to get from under the conspiracy charge, just like Tony said he would. Speaking of the boss, I should probably check in with him," he suddenly realized with a wince. "Kinda went off on Brand and then got out of there. He's probably wondering where I went."

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah, I'd be worried if one of my agents just disappeared after an interrogation, especially if it got a little tense."

"Little is an understatement," Dorney said, suddenly starting to panic. "Holy shit."

"What?" Gibbs asked, realizing Dorney was turning white.

"I just yelled at a guy that probably has had tattoos that hurt worse than anything I've ever felt."

Gibbs tried to keep his laughter to himself, and succeeded, but barely. "You yelled at him?"

"Yeah, and called him an idiot and worthless human being. I'm really glad he and I won't ever be left near lockers alone together. The last time I… nevermind."

Gibbs decided to steer them away from the trip down bad memory lane. "What did DiNozzo do when you yelled at him?"

"Nothing. Well, he wasn't in the room. He sent me in, and he was supposed to come in halfway through, we had it all worked out, you know? But he never came in, and then I kept going, and Brand… he seemed really surprised, Agent Gibbs. He didn't know Ali Bak was going to kill them. He didn't even consider it. He didn't have any of the tells that Greg has been teaching me to look for, and his body language was honestly distressed when he saw the pictures of Ali Bak's other victims. He really didn't know."

Gibbs was confused. He wondered why Tony had never come in to take over. The only reason he could think of was that he wanted to see how his Probie would do on his own.

Dorney suddenly turned towards Gibbs. "You just called him DiNozzo."

Gibbs shrugged.

"I haven't heard you call him that since I moved up to the bullpen."

Gibbs suddenly felt like he was the one being interrogated, and he froze.

"I knew you two were fighting, but I didn't think it was _that_ bad," Dorney said, looking out at the square with a sigh.

Gibbs felt his defenses rise. It _was_ bad, but it wasn't as bad as Dorneget was making it sound, but that was their business, not his. Another thought occurred to him though. "You're getting all of this by a slip of the tongue?"

Dorney shrugged. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he reached for it, startled. It was a text from Tony.

_Where are you?_

"Well, I guess it's time to face the music," he muttered.

_Outside in the square with Gibbs by the Admiral statue._

_Wait there for me._

"You might want to go," Dorney said. "_DiNozzo_ is coming out. Coming out _here_ that is. He's already- I guess- sort of- out? You know what I mean."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him, but stayed seated. This wasn't like if he were to be caught in interrogation watching them earlier. This had nothing to do with the case itself, and everything to do with watching out for Tony and his agents. He was also piqued by the changes he was seeing in Dorney, and wanted to see how he interacted with Tony. They sat and waited together in silence, and despite both of them knowing they were doing nothing wrong, they both held a barely reigned in sense of dread at Tony's pending arrival.

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Tony, Parke and Elly had watched Dorney interrogate Brand with rapt fascination. Tony hadn't been expecting Dorney to proceed so confidently. They had barely had any chance to work on interrogation skills at all, and he had never let Dorney get anywhere close to leading the questioning before. This was a perfect scenario, and he was concerned that he might be putting him on the task a little sooner than he should have, but he couldn't pass up the opportunity. He knew that if he would let Brand stew for a while with Dorney, it would poke and prod at his homophobia, and eventually when he came in, they could double dose him, confuse the crap out of him, and then use that to twist his words back on him.

When Dorney went in and actually interrogated him though, Tony let him roll with it. He was about to join him when he saw Dorney pull out the pictures, photos that Tony wasn't even aware were in the folder. He realized that Dorney had been the one to put the folders together for them, and since he had been researching the Qureshis, it only made sense that he would go ahead and research Ali Bak as well. He flipped his own copy of the file open, and found the horrible photos that he couldn't see well from behind the glass. Elly and Parke looked over his shoulder and winced, looking back into the room at Dorney as he calmly explained how each one had been tortured.

When Dorney suddenly scooped up the photos, and got to his feet, Tony knew something was hitting a nerve in him. Parke's jaw dropped as he tore into Brand, a complete contrast to the man who stood on the other side of the glass from Mortaire's interrogation with him. Elly felt his heart beating twice as hard and fast in his chest at the sudden change in his friend. All three of them froze, unable to move as Dorney slammed the door to the room, terrified that he was going to come into observation with them.

After a couple of minutes they all started moving again, realizing that they weren't going to be interrupted.

"Well, that wasn't exactly how I pictured that going," Tony said. "But we got his confession for the B and E and theft, and that's all we really needed. Conspiracy is going to be a little harder to prove for him, but that's up to the lawyers. Greg, go get him to write up his confession and sign it. Elly, find out when we can expect transport for them."

"On it, Boss," Elly said, leading Parke from the room.

Tony watched Brand's expression on the other side of the glass. It was lost in thought. He saw the way his expression had changed when Dorney had started explaining exactly what was going to happen to Dina, Talia and Malek, and just how much he had balked at the idea when Dorney explained a little more about who the three of them were. His expression now was distraught and shamefaced, and he knew that Dorney had just put him in his place more than any prison sentence would.

When Parke walked in with the paperwork Brand would need to file a confession, Brand simply reached for the pen, and bent his head to begin writing. Parke chanced a look over his shoulder at the glass and shrugged. Tony shook his head, confused by the entire experience. He headed for the bullpen to check on Dorney, and when he didn't find him there, pulled out his phone to text him.

Now he was walking up the sidewalk towards him and Jethro, wondering how his fiancé had been pulled into this. He saw the coffee in both of their hands, and raised an eyebrow at Jethro, who reached out and handed him his cup. When Tony still didn't look quite appeased, he took his cue.

"I'll leave you two to talk," he said, getting to his feet and leaving Tony standing there with a half-drank cup of bitter coffee. He shook his head a little in confusion, and sat next to his agent.

"That was interesting," he stated, taking a drink from the cup in his hand.

"Yeah, I'm not really sure what's up with him," Dorney said, a perplexed look on his face. "One minute he's referring to you as DiNozzo, the next he's giving you his coffee. So weird."

"No, I mean the interrogation," Tony said, storing the other statements, and the fact that Dorney was paying that much attention to his relationship, in the back of his mind.

"Oh, yeah. That too."

"Wanna talk about it?" Tony asked with a slight grimace at how cheesy it sounded.

"He's an idiot, and I apparently have an aversion to stupid people."

"I saw that. For what it's worth, you did a great job! I mean, I didn't expect such a powerful performance, and didn't even know the photos were in the folder. Nice touch!"

"Performance. Yeah, well, Elly told me to tap into my inner actor. _Act_ like the agent because you _are_ the agent, he'd said. Well, if this is what it feels like, I'm not sure I like it."

"Whoa, there. Back the truck up. You just totally tore into that guy, and justifiably may I add, and you got the confession. You can jump for joy any minute now!"

Dorney gave Tony a look that made him feel like he should sit back and shut up, and he wondered where he'd learned that one.

"Feeling this angry doesn't make me want to jump for joy. I'm not this person."

"UH, yeah, you are. That wasn't an act in there, Ned, that was you. And if you're not angered by creeps like that, then why are you here?"

Dorney sat back and sighed.

"He was signing his confession as I left, Ned. You got to him, and not just in the way that's going to make him admit he's guilty to the lesser crimes so that we won't go after him for the bigger crimes. You made him actually consider the consequences of his actions. That goes beyond us getting what we need for court. That is the difference you bring to the table. You know there's still a person in there somewhere when the rest of us just see a criminal."

Dorney looked over at Tony, and saw that he had a touch of sadness in his expression.

"I don't know if I can do this, Tony," he said quietly.

"I do," Tony answered just as quietly.

"The changes scare me."

"That's good. I wish they still scared me."

"I'm not sure I'm going to like who I'll come out the other side as," Dorney said as he looked back out across the square.

"What do you think you're going to suddenly be?"

"Bitter, angry, apathetic, hard… "

"Well, see, there's your mistake. If you're angry, you're not apathetic. You were passionate in there, and when you're passionate, you don't hold back. _You_ especially don't hold back apparently. This means a lot to you, and I think right now, you're scared because you're so close to being what you wanted to be for so long now. You told me when I brought you on that you wanted to be pushed, and I promised you I would. When you took off in there, I let you go with it because I needed to see how you'd do. It's not going to be very often that you'll be put in a room with someone who has hit personal nerves. We won't be up against hate crimes very often. This kind of thing usually goes to Gibbs' team, but I needed to know what you'd do when we are."

"And then I went and got all emotional," Dorney said, sounding defeated.

"Exactly! You _did_ get emotional. You didn't just play it off. There's a time and a place for that, and you're learning that balance. You tapped into those emotions, and you kicked some serious ass, and yet you didn't once appear to be about to resort to violence. That won't work in every case, but in this one, it did, and it did so beautifully. I'd be glad to have you do it all over again if the occasion arises."

Dorney raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

"You can stop being so self-conscious, Ned. You know I'm not afraid to call you out on things when you're crossing lines you shouldn't. I honestly didn't know you had it in you to tear into him like that today. I'm proud of you. Now we just need to work on how to get you to let go of that ferocity when it's all over so it doesn't kill you… and the rest of us."

Dorney chuckled and smiled shyly.

"Seriously, we were all holding our breaths, afraid you were going to come into observation with us. None of us wanted to be trapped in a tiny room with you at that moment."

Dorney laughed, and Tony smiled brightly.

"See? There you are! You're still in there. Now, for the really serious matter at hand. Why did my future husband come out here and buy you coffee? You trying to snag my man?"

Dorney's eyes bugged out of his head, and his mouth hung open as he shook his head, unable to form words. Tony burst out laughing, and slapped him on the knee.

"I'm just joking, calm down."

Dorney still hadn't stopped shaking his head in shock. "I wouldn't know the first thing about what to do with him," he said with a daunted tone, which only made Tony laugh even harder.

"That's okay, some days I don't either," Tony finally said when he caught his breath, and then took a drink of the bitter, sugarless coffee in his hand.

"Is that why you're fighting?" Dorney asked cautiously.

Tony shrugged. "We're still getting used to keeping work and our personal lives separate, but this case is all sorts of personal for the both of us. It was bound to get messy."

"That's what he called it, too. Messy that is."

"So why _did_ he come out to talk to you?"

Dorney thought about it a minute. "I think he was checking up on me. I kinda slammed my desk around before I came out here, and I think he was actually worried about me."

"He probably was. I know he may seem like one of those bitter, angry, hard agents you're afraid of becoming, but he's not. There's a crust of that, but you only become that way when you keep trying to care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't need to form that kind of shield. It doesn't take much to discover he's more heart than anyone in this agency."

"You don't seem to have that kind of shield, and neither does Parke or Elly, but I know the three of you still care."

"It takes on different forms in different people. We all have some kind of defenses. I think with Elly and I, we use humor. Parke, he gets quiet, turns inward, uses rational thinking to unravel people. I think he's still trying to find what works for him. This job is different for him compared to what he used to do. What once worked for him isn't working anymore. You'll find what works for you, too. It's not always the prettiest journey, but we'll be right here with you along the way."

Dorney sighed again, but nodded.

"We should get back in. We've got cases to write up, and it's already after six." Tony got to his feet and stretched, and Dorney followed suit. They headed for the main entrance together, and Tony took another drink of his coffee. He thought about what he had just said about Jethro. He did have more heart than anyone he knew on the job. It was why he loved him. He thought back to the words they had exchanged earlier, and turned towards Dorney, a plan hatching.

"Tonight, Gibbs' friends will still be in the hotel, but tomorrow, when we come back in, we are going to have to start researching the Qureshi. We need to find out how likely it is that they are going to send more people after Dina. I think in this case, Malek and Talia are collateral damage. Now that we know Dina has killed one of the high ranking terrorists, we need to focus on what is going to be coming our way."

Dorney nodded, and started talking in a tone that reminded Tony of someone reading a text book.

"There was mention in my research the other day that Ubaydah had been taken out, and that restitution was being demanded by the majority of their high council. We aren't going to have an easy time determining what is coming next. Now that their headquarters has been relocated once we uncovered its location and our allies raided it, we are at a disadvantage. Our information is coming through in chunks and trickles. We never know what we're going to be hearing next, or how proven the intel is."

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. He'd only been researching for three hours the day before, and yet he seemed to be more up to speed than he was. He suspected there was research being done in his off hours, and he hoped he was being secure about it.

They made their way back to their desks to find Elly and Parke already working on their reports. Both looked up to gauge how Dorney was doing, and when Tony looked over the partition, he noticed that Jethro, McGee and Ziva were all doing the same. He tried to not be exasperated by their care, knowing that was all it was, but he couldn't help the twinge of frustration that ran through him. He could take care of his team, and he needed them to trust that more than he needed their concerned glances.

He saw a copy of Brand's confession on his desk and added it to his folder. There were also copies of the transfer orders for both Brand and Mortaire. Elly's signature was scrawled across the bottom, and he added his before looking up to catch Elly's attention.

Elly's eyes diverted from his screen, and saw Tony holding up the papers. He nodded, got up to grab the forms, and left the bullpen to take them downstairs to the transfer team. He was glad to get out of the bullpen for a few minutes and away from everybody. It had been a crazy day, and he was anxious to put it behind him, though he knew the fireworks were just beginning.

Fornell had taken Ali Bak back to the FBI with him under much more serious charges than what they would have been able to get him on. The word had reached them that the DNA results were back on Stafford, but Tony hadn't heard yet. There were more urgent things to take care of right now than closing a 25 year old cold case whose suspect was already locked up. He had to admit that he was pretty stoked though, and extremely proud of himself and his teammates.

He dropped the paperwork off with the transport team, who immediately headed up to interrogation to get Brand and Mortaire so they could get them settled and transferred. After that, he stopped to see if Ducky was in autopsy still. He had been making time to chat with him every couple of weeks, or as Tony called it, an unofficial session. He had grown to really like the older man, and had found that he encouraged him in ways that other people had discouraged him in the past. He appreciated that. Autopsy was dark though, and he shrugged, before going to see if Abby was in her lab still.

He walked in to find her and McGee gathering up their things to rush out and look at the apartment they wanted. They exchanged a few words, and then Elly took the stairs up while they took the elevator. He swung through the breakroom and grabbed a couple of things from the vending machine, and then headed back to his desk. He noticed that Gibbs' team had left, and everyone on his team had buckled down to get a first draft of their report done.

He worked on his quickly, and everyone got done at about the same time except for Tony, who sent them all home with his blessing.

He took his time getting his stuff together, and noticed that Dorney did too. Parke waved goodbye as he walked out, his phone already to his ear as he tried to get ahold of Tiffany. Dorney approached Tony's desk, and Elly watched as discreetly as possible.

"You're going home soon, right?" he asked tentatively.

Tony offered him a slight smile and a nod. "Yeah, I'm going home to talk things out with Crusty. Don't worry."

Dorney nodded with a sigh of relief. "Good. Have a good night."

Elly slipped out from behind his desk and headed towards the elevator with him. "Night, Boss!" he shouted over his shoulder. Once the elevator doors closed on he and Dorney, he looked over at him. "Crusty?" he asked.

Dorney smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. Tony and I were talking earlier, and he referred to Gibbs as having a crusty layer, a shield, to keep his emotions in check and protected."

"How did you guys end up talking about that?" Elly asked as the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened to the garage.

"I said something about the two of them fighting."

"Whoa! Was that the smartest move?" Elly asked, wondering exactly how big of a pair Dorney was growing.

He shrugged and smiled even more sheepishly. "Probably not, but I really hate when they fight."

"Why?" Elly asked quietly.

"I guess it's kinda like watching your parents fight. You really don't want them to be mad at each other."

"Didn't see that often," Elly said, knowing they were breaching uncomfortable territory.

"Yeah, well… I didn't either. They probably mean more to me than my folks, and they definitely have been more supportive of me." Dorney shrugged, his expression growing somewhat depressed.

Elly rested his hand on his shoulder. "I think we need a drink to celebrate our confessions. What do ya say?"

"I think it's a beer and pizza kinda night," Dorney agreed.

"Okay, I'm going to run home, and grab some clothes. You order from Ricci's, I'll pick it up on my way back over to your place. Just gotta remember where in the hell I put my earplugs after the range the other day, because boy, you _snore_ like a bear."

Dorney laughed, and shook his head. "What do you want on your pizza?"

"Anything besides anchovies and olives. I'm not picky when it comes to my pizza."

"Okay. I'm going to stop and grab some beer, because I doubt I've got enough for the both of us after a day like today. I'll see if they have those nose strips so you don't decide to try to sleep in your car."

"That is the kindest thing you've ever done for me," Elly said, finally letting go of Dorney's shoulder. Dorney laughed again and shook his head, stepping away to head for his car.

"See you in an hour," he shouted.

Elly got into his car with a satisfied smile. He wasn't in the mood to be alone right now, and he was glad he and Dorney were going to hang out. He just hoped they could steer clear of the more serious conversations they tended to have. He wasn't sure what it was that kept them opening up to one another, but it seemed like every time they got together, something deep was discussed.

"Kinda nice to have real friends that actually give a damn though," he said to himself as he pulled out of the garage. "Really kinda nice."

AIS-NCIS-AIS-NCIS-AIS

Tony finished his report and slid it into his drawer. It was about 2030, and he was starving. He got up, flipped off the desk lamp he had turned on an hour ago, and picked up his stuff. He was sliding the lock on his phone when the elevator opened while he was still ten feet away. He looked up, then back at his phone, then up again and froze.

"Thought you might be hungry. You finished?" Jethro asked quietly. Tony smiled at the man looking at him sheepishly with a bag of take out. He joined him on the lift, and hit the button for the garage.

"I am, and I'm on my way home to my fiancé. Figured he might be missing me soon. I started missing him about an hour ago, so he's probably due any minute now."

"He was kinda worried if you were going to come home at all," Jethro said, averting his eyes anywhere but at Tony.

Tony reached forward and stopped the elevator, turning towards Jethro, resting a hand on his arm.

"Hey, look at me."

Jethro turned to look at Tony, trying to keep his eyes on his, but they kept darting away and back.

"This is work. It's going to suck when our cases overlap, but that's going to stay here. We may hash it out at home, but I promise, I _swear_, that I will never let work come between our relationship, Jethro. I just had to finish my report, that's all."

Tony watched as Jethro swallowed, unable to speak. He dropped his backpack, and took the take out and sat it on the floor next to them. He slipped his hands around Jethro's waist, and felt him melt against him. It felt weird to feel Jethro so vulnerable as he clung to him, and it amplified just how scared Jethro was that he was suddenly not going to be there one day. It also reminded him that Jethro's comments earlier, and his concepts about where the case should go, were fueled by irrational emotions, and he needed to respond to them as such.

He ran his hands up Jethro's back comfortingly, and felt him relax slightly. "Can you do that?" Tony asked.

"Do what?"

"Leave the case here tonight?"

"I think I can do that," Jethro said, pulling back to look into Tony's eyes. "We'll have to talk about it eventually though."

"Tomorrow night, then, after we make some headway on what our next steps will be. But not at home. Here, dinner, somewhere else, but not at home."

"Okay. I can go for that."

"Good. I don't care when we talk about work at home, but when we're fighting about work stuff, I don't want to bring it home with us. We'll stay here as long as we need and get it out of our systems, but it can't come home with us."

Gibbs nodded, smiling at his partner. "I think that might be the smartest move we can make." He leaned in and kissed Tony gently, grateful for him.

"Love you, Tony," he whispered. Tony smiled.

"Love you, too, Jethro. Let's go home! I'm hungry, and I need to de-stress a little before doing this all over again tomorrow."

"Oh, I think I can help you with that," Jethro said, picking up the bag from the floor and hitting the elevator switch.

"Oh, really?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure I know exactly what can take your stress away, and it just might help mine, too."

"What's that?" Tony asked coyly as the elevator doors opened.

"I can't say. If it echoes through the garage, we'll get canned."

"Hmmm! Nice!"

Half an hour later, Tony was pinned against the wall next to the front door. The take-out was sitting on the coffee table, not even opened yet and forgotten. Jethro had been watching for Tony to pull up, knowing he wouldn't be too far behind him. As soon as he was through the door, his stuff hit the floor and Tony's back hit the wall. Their hands worked adeptly at removing one another's clothes in a flurry, leaving a pile on the floor. Tony reached out for the lock on the front door, but was too far away to succeed. Jethro reached over and flicked it for him so that they both heard the satisfying thunk of the recently installed deadbolt.

Their tongues wrestled desperately over one another, hungry for eachother and that connection they were always just clothing away from having. Tony pushed away from the wall, his hands on Jethro's hips, guiding him backwards towards the steps. Instead, Jethro's back ended up pressed against the wall next to them, and he groaned as Tony bit his bottom lip before running his tongue across it.

Jethro's arms were around him, holding him as closely to him as possible as Tony used his mouth to try and break him into submission. He was close to succeeding when Jethro dipped his head forward and bit down on Tony's neck, right at the curve to his shoulder. Tony's head dropped back in a groan, and Jethro turned so that Tony was now pressed against the wall as his mouth moved to Tony's collarbone to lick the bite marks he had left on him the night before.

Tony whimpered, his fingers entwining themselves with Jethro's hair. He wanted some of the control in this, but it felt too good to have Jethro's lips on his body, his tongue licking and teasing him, to fight it. His other hand slid down Jethro's side, caressing the tender spot on his hip and made Jethro arch into him. Tony smirked at the power that simple touch yielded over him. His hand drifted even lower, and reached behind him. It seemed at first that he was going to simply grab an ass cheek, but instead, his fingers slid past them and pressed on Jethro's perineum, making him gasp and moan.

Tony pushed away from the wall again, turning Jethro towards the steps, and giving him a push. "Upstairs," he ordered, and Jethro went as directed.

He chased him up the stairs and into their room. He kicked closed the door behind him and followed Jethro to the bed, but Jethro spun around and grabbed Tony by the waist, his arms coming around him tightly and picking him up, swinging him around to land on the bed. Tony groaned as Jethro straddled him, grabbing his arms to pin him down and bending to kiss him hungrily.

Tony kissed him back, unsure if he wanted to struggle anymore. He loved the weight of Jethro's body on him, the possessiveness of the kiss, and as always with them, the control factor, but he was feeling far from docile. He thrust his hips up against Jethro, whose eyes rolled into the back of his head. Tony took that as a sign that the struggle wasn't over, and bucked up against him again, while at the same time trying to roll them. The motion gained him a position on his side with Jethro's legs wrapped around him, keeping him from rolling over any further and gaining the top position.

They kept kissing, their hands feeling whatever they could of one another. Jethro couldn't think anymore. He wasn't sure what he wanted. Every nerve in his body was on fire, and it felt like he was going to explode. This was different than any make-up sex he had ever had, even with Tony. He was matched pound for pound, both physically and emotionally, and though he knew they were at an impasse, it felt like right where they needed to be. No one was gaining any ground, and no one was letting any go.

They were equals, inside and out. Jethro smiled into the kiss, feeling the weight of the world suddenly lifting off of him. He reached for Tony's hand, entwining his fingers with his. The grasp that was returned was just as strong and supportive as he hoped his was for Tony. He started moving slowly so that he was on his back, Tony following as they refused to stop kissing one another.

It was a natural transition, and somehow, he felt that by offering himself up to Tony's wants, he had kept his half of the control. They were still balanced, still equals, and he knew that no matter what happened there in their bedroom, or at work in the bullpen, they would always stay equals. There was a freedom in that. He knew he could always trust Tony to be there for him, and he knew that Tony would always trust him to be there when he needed him, but he also knew that Tony was capable of taking care of himself, and those around him, as much as he was.

Tony felt the gradual change as well. Jethro hadn't accepted defeat, he had given Tony the reins, and Tony knew that there was just as much power in that as in that impasse. The scales still felt even. He grabbed the lube from the dresser, and tossed it down on the bed next to them. He wasn't sure what he wanted other than to keep kissing Jethro. He couldn't think, his mind a muddled mess of sensations caused by every bit of contact his skin had with his lover's.

He ran his nose along Jethro's, his eyes fluttering open to look down into the blue glazed orbs staring back at him. Their lips met again, and Tony felt the curve of the lips against him, smiling. He smiled too, a weird giddy sensation coming over him. He reached for the lube, clicking the lid open. He pulled out of the kiss, and poured a handful of lube before clicking it shut again. He straddled Jethro and grabbed both of their engorged cocks, smearing them both in his hands, stroking them. Jethro sat up, his arms going around Tony's shoulders, their lips meeting again in that hungry kiss as Tony used his magic fingers on them, working them closer to release.

Their tongues twisted around each other as Tony's hands stroked them so that the friction against one another was just as intense as what his fingers and palms felt like as they ran up their shafts. Jethro's arms held him up, and kept him from falling off the bed, as Tony used one hand to begin tracing along their sensitive heads as the other pumped them.

Jethro groaned and broke the kiss, his head tossing back as he panted. Tony pushed him back on the bed and let go of their cocks, grabbing the lube again. He smeared some on his fingers, then reached down to prep Jethro, his fingers working in and out of him and causing him to buck against them. He pulled his fingers out and got into position, lining his cock up with Jethro's opening, and gently pushing forward until his hands were on Jethro's shoulders and he was up to the hilt inside of his lover.

He bent to take Jethro's lips, stealing the little puffs of air he was trying to breathe. He slid out of him almost completely, and pushed back in. Jethro was vice-tight around him, and it felt amazing. Tony stayed bent over Jethro's face, staring down into his eyes as he slowly took him, as Jethro slowly gave himself to him. They built the momentum all over again, and as Tony's pace increased, Jethro pushed back against him.

As they moved faster and faster together, Tony's hands slid off of Jethro's sweaty shoulders, and onto the bed. Their foreheads were against each other, and their lips touched over and over as they tried to kiss in the midst of the flurry of movements. Tony let his left hand hold his weight, as his right hand slid down Jethro's body until he could slip his fingers around Jethro's dick.

Minutes later, both men were ready to let go, waiting for the other, not wanting for it to be over yet but needing the release too badly to not give in. Tony's strokes became rhythmless, and Jethro could no longer push back against Tony's thrusts as he felt the rush of blood signaling his orgasm.  
Gasps and hisses filled the air as they came, Tony pulling out to come on Jethro's leg, finding an odd sense of satisfaction in Jethro being the one covered in the sticky fluid instead of him for once.

Tony collapsed on Jethro, their lips meeting for a slow, sloppy, breathless kiss. Tony fell out of the kiss, and rested his head between Jethro's shoulder and neck, and Jethro nuzzled against him, their arms around each other. They dozed off like that, glad to be in that place they only found together; that place that felt more right than anything else ever had, or ever would.


	10. Chapter 10

_Got a little mush factor going on here :) Hope you enjoy!_

As It Seems: Chapter Ten

Tony woke up a little after midnight to a rumbling stomach. He looked over at the clock, and then down at Jethro. He grinned when he saw Jethro smiling in his sleep, and shook his head at how happy he felt. He carefully slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him, and headed for the bathroom. He used a wet wash rag to wipe himself down, and then found the basketball shorts and tee shirt he had taken off a couple of days prior draped over the side of the laundry hamper. He slipped them on and flipped off the light, looking around the door frame at Jethro's sleeping form.

When he was sure he wasn't stirring, he creaked open the door and headed for the living room. He found the take out sitting on the coffee table, and took it into the kitchen. He opened the various cartons to find the one he knew was for him, dumped half of it out onto a plate, added an egg roll and slipped the plate into the microwave. He couldn't wait until they got back from Italy, and he could start the remodel on the kitchen. He had sketched out plans on what he wanted to do, and had Jethro's blessing on the project.

The countdown was at one second when Tony popped the door open, making sure not to let the obnoxious beeping noise disturb the quiet of the house. He put the rest of the food in the fridge, grabbed a fork, and sat down at the dining room table. He was lost in thought, chowing down on rice and chicken when he heard footsteps entering the room. He smiled as he looked up to find Jethro standing there in boxers, his eyes squinting against the light.

"Hey," Tony said quietly, an irrepressible smile on his face.

"Whatcha doing?" Jethro asked sleepily.

"Eating. Hadn't had anything since breakfast. My stomach was growling so loud it woke me up. Surprised it didn't wake you."

Jethro came over and leaned over the back of the chair, his arms coming around Tony. Tony leaned back into the embrace, his head resting on Jethro's shoulder.

"You wanna join me?" Tony asked. Jethro shook his head no, but made no sound. Tony smirked. He loved sleepy Jethro. "You just want me to come back to bed." Jethro nodded, and Tony chuckled. "Let me finish this, and I'll be right up. I'm almost done." Jethro nodded again, but didn't let Tony go.

Tony brought one hand to Jethro's on his chest, and he stabbed another piece of chicken with his fork with the other one. He put it in his mouth, then stabbed another. He chewed quickly and swallowed, then put the other piece in his mouth.

"Okay, that's enough," he said with his mouth full. "Let's go."

Jethro nodded again vehemently, and Tony got up. Only then did Jethro let him go. Tony went to put his plate in the kitchen, and Jethro waited. When he came back through the archway to the dining room, Jethro took his hand and pulled him back through the living room. Tony barely had time to hit the light switch on the way by to turn off the dining room lights.

They made their way up the stairs, and back into the bedroom. Jethro pulled him into bed with him, not letting go until he was getting into position. Tony pulled the blanket over them, and wrapped his arms around Jethro, who immediately laid his head on Tony's chest.

"That's better," Jethro said against him.

Tony smiled brightly, running his fingers through Jethro's hair, and listening to him breathe until they both drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Tony came downstairs to find Jethro staring out the back window with a cup of coffee in his hand. It had taken forever to get his mane to cooperate, and he knew Jethro would be at least an entire cup ahead of him, if not more. He came up behind him, slipped his arms around his waist with a smile, and kissed him quickly before reaching for his mug that Jethro had already prepared on the counter.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked.

Jethro turned to him with a smile. "Should we just do it here?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"The wedding."

"Oh! We could. I was thinking of something the other night though. What if we did it at Yards Park?" he asked. "It's gorgeous, there's venues for it, and it's close to some place meaningful to us."

"It really is beautiful," Jethro said thoughtfully. "I kinda like it at night when all the lights come on."

"Me too," Tony said with a smile. "The only downside is that it's also very public. That's something we'd have to consider the backlash from."

Jethro nodded. "Yeah. It's not going to stay secret very long once it's happened though."

"True," Tony said, raising his cup slightly as he shrugged. "I'm not even sure it's available. I looked, and you have to request it through some kinda online form. If we want to do it, we're going to have to know soon."

"We kind of have to know everything soon. It's less than three months away," Jethro pointed out.

"Ugh! Don't remind me! Not that I'm not excited, but the planning…"

"Tell me what I can do," Jethro said, moving to stand next to Tony, sitting his coffee cup down on the counter, and slipping his hands around Tony's waist.

"Everything?" Tony joked.

"Besides that," Jethro joked back with a smile and shake of his head.

Tony chuckled. "Okay, well, according to Abby, we have to have a place, the caterers, the table and chair people, which in all fairness, I didn't even know existed, and a DJ. Florists are optional, though someone to perform the ceremony is not."

"Okay," Jethro said, thinking of a game plan, which he quickly learned looked more like a strategic battle plan in his head.

"Then we can't forget any décor we want, and the invitations."

"I'm not good with ribbon," Jethro said, shaking his head, looking apprehensive.

Tony laughed, and leaned his forehead against Jethro's. "Neither am I, and honestly, I would be happy if we didn't have a single bow anywhere. I do want to make sure we have a good photographer though. The scenery is amazing there, so photos would be awesome." Tony pulled back just enough to take a drink of his coffee.

"What do we want to do about the cake?" Jethro asked.

"Oh, now cake is something I can get behind!" Tony said with a smile. "I think if there is anything I can let Abby help with that won't get too out of control, it's the cake. I think I can appease her by sticking her on that project. Would you want to go taste cakes with us?"

"Nah. Just nothing fruity. Not a big fruit flavored cake person. Chocolate, vanilla, all that is fine, but nothing like raspberry or orange…" Jethro grimaced at the thought of some of the cakes he'd had.

"They can do different flavors for different layers," Tony said with a shrug.

"There's only going to be like twenty people there. How many layers will we need?" Jethro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, there will be layers, they're just smaller. We don't need anything huge, but the whole stacked layers, oh yeah- definitely going to happen."

Jethro laughed. "At least you know something you want!" he said, watching the way Tony's eyes sparkled.

"Yeah, well, that's the second thing I want."

"What's the first?"

"You."

Jethro leaned in and kissed Tony gently. Tony sighed into the kiss, and they stared back into each other's eyes afterwards until Tony's phone beeped.

"My reminder to pick my guys up breakfast. They kinda earned it after putting up with me yesterday, and definitely for tearing apart Brand and Mortaire."

Jethro nodded, feeling somehow much more relaxed about the case now. Tony noticed it, and smiled.

"Congratulations, by the way," Jethro said, letting Tony go to reach for his coffee.

"For?" Tony asked, looking confused.

"Stafford," he said.

"Wait? What?" Tony asked, freezing.

"Your team didn't tell you?"

"Uh! No!"

"Yeah, Abby confirmed the DNA. It's Stafford."

"OH MY GOD!" Tony said, putting his coffee on the counter and jumping at Jethro who barely had time to sit his coffee down before catching the hug Tony threw at him.

Jethro chuckled at how excited he was.

"That's so awesome!" Tony said excitedly. "I bet Elly was through the roof! I can't believe that little prick didn't tell me!" He pulled out his phone to text him when he realized that it hadn't been his reminder that had chimed at him, but a text from Elly himself.

_Just got an alert to my phone that the database picked up another match! Heading in! _

"Oh, crap!" Tony said, bustling past Jethro towards the living room to grab the lockbox. "I gotta go! That was Elly a minute ago. We have _another_ hit on the database!"

"You want me to pick up breakfast?" Jethro offered.

"That would be great!" Tony said, stepping back towards him to kiss him quickly. "Thank you!"

"Least I can do," Jethro said. "What am I getting?"

"I was just going to grab bagels or something," Tony said, holstering his weapon and slipping his creds in his pocket.

"I can do that. See you in a little while," he said, following Tony's lead and getting his weapon loaded and packed.

"Love you," Tony said, leaning in for another kiss.

"Love you, too," Jethro said, smiling and shaking his head as Tony jogged for the door, scooping his bag up from where it landed when he came home the night before.

He got his phone out and squinted at the numbers before hitting Abby's speed-dial. When she answered, he smiled, his battle plan coming together.

"Gibbs!" she said. "What's up?"

"Hey, Abs. I need a favor."

"Anything," she said.

"Wedding kinda favor," he said, waiting for the reaction.

"Yes! Yes! Anything! Tell me!" Abby said exuberantly, and Jethro could almost imagine her bouncing around.

"I need for you to find out what all it would take to reserve Yards Park for the wedding."

"Oh! That would be perfect!" she gushed. "It's so pretty! And there's like, all these different dimensions to the park, so you could do it overlooking the river, or by the fountains, or in the gardens, or in that big greenspace. Where do you want to do it?"

"Aw, hell, I don't know. I kinda like near the water," Jethro said, locking the front door behind him as he headed out. "And I'm thinking later in the day. The lights are kinda nifty at night, and Tony said he wants lots of photos. That would make for some nice pictures, wouldn't it?" he got into the truck imagining all of the photos that would be hanging around their house by Christmas from the ceremony.

"Definitely! Eeeee! I'm so excited! I'll look into it right now! How many people are we expecting?" she asked.

"About twenty, probably less."

"That's, like, really little, Gibbs."

"That's how we want it. Simple, small, just those people we really care about."

"It suits you," she said much more softly as she thought. "Both of you."

"Yeah. We have really found out who's there for us over the past few months. Those are the people we want there."

"You guys are like, the _perfect_ couple," Abby said dreamily.

"I dunno," Jethro said, shrugging. "We're just happy together. It's not always perfect, and I wouldn't want it to be. You and McGee seem pretty happy together. That's all that really matters, Abs."

Abby smiled. "We really liked the apartment we went and saw last night. It's actually more of a townhouse. There's an upstairs and a downstairs, and upstairs, there's two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the master bedroom has an en-suite bath. Then downstairs, there's the kitchen, living room, dining room, and a small office."

"That sounds great for the two of you," Jethro said, pulling off the exit to stop at his favorite coffee place near the Yard for breakfast for everyone.

"It is. We went ahead and applied for it."

"That's great!" Jethro smiled at the idea that both Abby and McGee were finally moving in the right direction. "Hey, one more thing. Tony said he was going to have you help him with the cake."

Abby squealed on the other end of the phone, and Gibbs chuckled.

"Don't tell him yet that you're looking into the park. I kinda just want to get that done and out of the way as a surprise. His team got another hit on their database thing this morning, so he's going to be buried. I'd hate for him to finally find the time, and realize that the place is already booked for the weekend. Let me know what I have to do, and I'll make sure it gets taken care of."

"Aww! He loves surprises. How romantic! Well, the, ya know, your version of romantic."

Gibbs chuckled, getting out of the truck. "Gotta go, Abs. Thanks for everything."

"Let me know if there's anything else I can do!"

"Will do!" Jethro hung up and went into the coffee shop. Bill was behind the counter, managing the morning happenings.

"Hey! Gibbs! Your usual?" he asked.

"And then some."

"Oh? What can I get ya?" he asked, leaning over the donut case, letting his other clerks handle the actual line of customers.

"I need coffees for my team, for Tony's, and breakfast for them."

"Big order today! So your usual, Mr. Hazelnut, Ms. Chai, and Mr. Non-fat. What's Mr. Hazelnut's crew need?"

"Hell if I know!" Jethro said with a chuckle. "Let's just go black all around and some of the extras on the side. They can put it together themselves."

"Sounds good. Now, for breakfast. Whatcha thinking?"

"Bagels and donuts?" Jethro asked more than said.

Bill cackled. "Mr. Hazelnut sent you on this little expedition, didn't he?"

Jethro chuckled and smiled with a nod. "Yeah, he did. He's got his team doing something important for me, so I offered to take over breakfast duty when they got called in early." Bill nodded with a grin, and started putting a breakfast care package together for him.

"I'll fix ya up!" he said, shuffling around with a box of bagels and putting small containers of cream cheese in it. "Hey, Benny! I need you to get me four blacks, one extra dark, an iced chai, a non-fat vanilla cap, and breakfast blend with nut. Read that back!"

A young guy started labeling cups as he repeated back the order perfectly. Bill started putting together a small white bag with pastries from under the case, and Jethro watched with a smile as he waited.

He'd decided long ago that he liked Bill, but when he and Tony wandered in late one night after staying in the office under cases and a mound of paperwork, he'd solidified it. Tony had called him Jethro, and Bill had picked up on it, joking about never knowing Gibbs had a first name. Tony had blushed in a way that was insanely sexy, and Jethro had smirked.

"_Only certain people get to use it," _he'd said, and Bill had chuckled.

"_Alright then! I take it that's a rather exclusive club that I don't really qualify for!" _Jethro had noticed the slightly pink shade of Bill's cheeks as well, but the smile on his face let him know he wasn't opposed to the idea of them being together. It was soon after that that Tony had earned the name Mr. Hazelnut, and the next trip in, Bill had nicknames for Ziva and McGee as well.

Jethro handed his debit card to Bill, and considered how he was going to carry everything out to the truck, none the less into the building. He saw the answer as Benny stacked the drinks on top of each other, and then slipped the box and pastry bag into a larger bag with a handle. He added a small bag of creams and sugars, and then handed it off to Gibbs, who then took his debit card back from Bill.

"Take care of 'em, Gibbs!" he called after him.

"Always!" he shouted back. "Thanks Bill!" He made it out to the truck and sat the drinks on the side of the bed, steadying them with one hand as he opened the door, and then sat them on the floor to make sure they didn't spill. The food landed on the seat, and then he went around to the driver's side. He realized that he was still smiling, and he had that light, bouncy feeling he'd had so often over the past couple of months.

The wedding plans he and Tony had decided on that morning made things seem real, and he tapped on the steering wheel as he pulled into the Yard. He juggled the drinks and breakfast as he made his way up to the bullpen, and his face hurt with how hard he smiled when he got off the elevator and saw Tony in front of his plasma with his team.

_Just a few months, and we'll be tying the knot. What could be better than that?_

AISNCISAISNCISAIS

Tony had come into the bullpen to find Critten and Dorney at their computers already. He was surprised Dorney had gotten there so quickly, but he did live closer to the Yard than Critten did, so he shrugged to himself.

"What are we looking at guys?" he asked, coming around his desk and dropping his stuff.

"We have Denise Elizabeth Graham. Ms. Graham was also killed in '86 in Albany, New York," Elly started.

"'86 was a bad year for murder in Albany," Tony said with a wince. "Go on."

"Graham was the mother of, get this, Melinda Stafford's daughters' father's next child. So she's Stafford's baby-daddy's other baby-mama."

Tony's mouth hung open as he raised an eyebrow at Elly, then stole a glance at Dorney who nodded at him.

"Okay, put it up," Tony said, moving to lean against the front of his desk and look over the file. Parke came into the bullpen, and went to toss his stuff behind his desk.

"Wow, how late am I to the party?" he asked, looking around.

"Only a minute. So far, all I know is that the guy that fathered Stafford's twins had a baby with another woman, and Stafford killed that other woman. Well, allegedly, so far." Parke joined him in front of the plasma, and Dorney leaned on the corner of Elly's desk, facing the screen.

"Huh," Parke said, shaking his head as he looked at the screen. "Interesting, at least. What are the other pings?"

"She was killed four months before Jericho in Albany, for starters," Elly said.

"Oh, that's not good," Parke said.

"That's what Tony said," Dorney pointed out. Parke looked at Tony, and they both nodded with matching grimaces.

"The guy, Ezekiel Drost, was an active part of Graham's son's life until he was about two years old, when good ol' Zeke landed in jail. He was pulled over for a headlight being out. When the officer said he smelled alcohol on his breath and asked him to get out of the car, Zeke assaulted him. _Then,_ when searching the car, they found weapons and drugs."

"Sounds like a real winner," Dorney said, rolling his eyes.

"Gets better. Graham was visiting him in jail, with their son with her, and he punched her in front of everyone, including of course the kid. His sentence grew a little longer, to say the least. She wrote to him after that, but he never had contact with her again. He was killed in prison."

"Guess _no_ one liked him," Tony commented quietly.

"By time Melinda Stafford allegedly killed Graham, the guy was ten feet under, and their son was ten years old." Elly sat back for a moment while the team absorbed the information.

"Poor kid," Parke said, shaking his head. "First, he's stuck with a despicable father, and then his mom dies at the hand of daddy's psycho ex."

"I dunno," Elly said with a shrug. "Sounds like he'd fit right in around here."

"True," Tony said. "Got his number in the file somewhere? Is he looking for gainful fulltime employment?"

"I'm sure I can find it!" Elly joked. "Anyway, they found Graham dead in her car. Someone had slit her throat, which is the last ping. Stafford talked about the blade of the knife she used in one of the confessions with the shrink."

"Oh, yeah," Parke said, closing his eyes a moment and swallowing. "She was especially freaky when she talked about that one. Going into how thick the blood was that dripped off of it, and how it had shone brighter than the blade itself. She's one creepy sicko."

"Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Parke?" Tony joked.

"Yes, as professional as you're going to get out of me at the moment," Parke answered with mock seriousness.

"Very well then," Tony said, turning towards Elly with a smirk. "What does the file in Albany have for us?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" Elly started clicking and typing while everyone waited in silence. "Holy shit, they have the knife," Elly said in awe, shooting the evidence log photos to the screen.

"I'll be damned," Parke said, stepping towards the screen.

"And there are prints that were on the knife, but since Stafford wasn't in the system back then, it didn't raise any flags. I bet it would now. Actually…" Elly clicked around on his computer, and the rest of the group fell silent, watching the screen and Elly for him to finish his thought.

Two sets of prints came up on the plasma, and Dorney got up from the corner of Elly's desk, and Tony moved closer to the screen as well. Elly's cursor could be seen highlighting the fingerprints until they were huge on the screen.

"That one there is her index finger," Dorney said excitedly, pointing to the third print on the sheet from the evidence log. "Look! Look! The loop and curve there with the omega looking thing, exactly the same as this right here!"

"You're right!" Tony said. "That's too damned close not to-" Elly selected the finger prints and highlighted one in blue, then set the overlay with the index print on file for Stafford. It was an exact match.

Dorney did a jump of a dance towards Elly's desk and high-fived him. Tony reached out and pushed Parke's shoulder, making him stumble a little before they both cackled giddy laughs of celebration.

"That's incredible!" Parke said, coming out of the shock of the find.

"I know!" Elly said, jumping up from his desk. "That's two twenty-seven year old cold cases in forty-eight hours we get to close!"

"Yeah! Hey! About that! You little pricks let me go home last night without telling me about Jericho! What the hell? I had to hear about it from Gibbs this morning!"

"You had other things on your mind," Parke said.

"We figured it wasn't top priority when we found out, and then, honestly, I kinda forgot," Elly said, an apologetic look on his face.

"No keeping awesome news from me ever again!"

"Okay, in that case, I'm pregnant with Ned's child, and I've ordered a desk made completely of Starbursts. It should be here sometime this week."

"Awesome! When's the due date?"

"Two days ago."

"Even better. Now get me the case file from Albany. The rest of you, I need as much information as exists on the Qureshi faction, their resources, who they have contacts with in the States, every single sympathizer on U.S. soil and in countries close enough that they may be able to slip across our borders unnoticed."

The ding of the elevator made Tony look over his shoulder to see Jethro coming towards them with breakfast.

"Oh, see, this is why I love him," Tony said quietly. "Is that for us?" he asked a little louder.

"Some of it," Jethro said with a broad smile.

"Got my usual in there somewhere?" Tony asked as the team gathered around them, awaiting access to the goods.

"Yeah, Bill made sure Mr. Hazelnut, Ms. Chai and Mr. Non-fat got their orders," Jethro smirked at Tony who chuckled.

"He's funny! Now gimme!" Tony said, reaching for the drinks. "What do we got?"

"Yours, McGee's, Ziva's and mine should all be in the same tray like usual." Tony reached for the cup he knew would be his. Jethro realized that there was an extra coffee in the bottom tray of black coffees to even it out, and he shook his head at Bill's thoughtfulness as he saw the markings on it that he usually saw on the side of his extra bold. He grabbed it and then walked around to his side of the bullpen, leaving Tony's team to snatch up their food and coffee.

Tony handed the leftovers to Jethro over the partition, and he took them with a smile as their hands brushed and their eyes locked on one another. Tony leaned against the wood frame, staring at Jethro a moment. "We got another."

"What?" Jethro asked.

Tony nodded. "The guy that fathered Stafford's twins had another kid with this woman Denise Graham. Stafford killed Graham. Albany PD had the knife, and they had prints off of it on file. We pulled the prints, and they are a very obvious match to Stafford."

"That's a hell of a streak you've got going there," Jethro said, sitting back in his chair with a proud and impressed expression that made his eyes twinkle. Tony smiled at him with a nod.

"Well, you know, I'm lucky. I've got an ass-kicking team!" Tony said, turning so that his team heard.

"Hell yeah!" Elly said, his mouth full of donut. Parke raised his coffee in a salute, and Dorney did a spin in his chair with his coffee in one hand a half a bagel covered in cream cheese in the other. Both Tony and Jethro chuckled. Tony looked up at Tim as he walked in with a huge grin.

"Hey, McTim! Did you go for the apartment?"

"Yeah!" he said excitedly. "It's exactly what we wanted. We filled out the application before we left last night, and I just got a call from the realtor. The other couple that was going to look at it this morning backed out, and so she went ahead and ran our financials and background check this morning. We're approved!"

"Big surprise," Tony said, looking at Jethro who rolled his eyes. "Let us know when the move is! Only fair!"

"Will do!" Tim said with a smile as broad and bright as everyone else.

"Hey, McGee!" Elly hollered now that his mouth wasn't full of donut.

"Yeah?" he shouted.

"We got another!"

"No way!" Tim jumped to his feet and moved closer to Gibbs' desk so he wouldn't have to yell.

"Yeah," Tony confirmed. "And the prints that were on file match Stafford."

"Yes!" Tim said, reaching past Jethro's head to high five Tony. Jethro raised an eyebrow at him for invading his desk space, and Tim backed up a step and gave a one shoulder shrug against the urge to apologize.

"Okay, my guys have work to do," Tony said, turning around and powering up his computer.

Tim practically bounced back to his desk, and Jethro realized that if Tim was in, Abby probably was too. He decided that listening to Tony's team discuss his former case might not bode well for his incredible morning, so he got up, took his coffee, and headed for the cafeteria to get a CafPow for Abby.

He walked into the lab to find Abby sitting at her desk in her office instead of out at the tables.

"Hey, Abs," he said, smiling brightly at her. "I heard the good news. Looks like you guys got your place."

"Yeah!" Abby said, reaching for her beloved caffeinated punch. "I'm excited and nervous and ecstatic and in shock…"

"That's good, right?" Jethro asked, unsure of her reaction.

"Yeah! It's awesome! It's just so real all of the sudden."

"That's the exciting part," he said with a gentle smile.

"I've never lived with anyone like this before, Gibbs. I mean, I haven't lived with anyone since college. As much as I want us to work, Timmy and I, and as much as I want to live with him, I'm just nervous about it and the changes, ya know?"

"Completely natural. If I know McGee though, he'll roll with the punches as you get used to it. I don't think he's ever lived with someone like this either. You'll figure it out."

"Thanks, Gibbs. That's what I needed to hear." She reached forward and gave him a hug that he returned.

"Tony's team were able to confirm that their hit was a match already," he said.

"Wow! That was fast! How?"

"Fingerprints were in the original file. They weren't in the system yet at the time of the murder, so ya know."

"That's so awesome! Go, Tony!"

Gibbs nodded. "Were you able to look into the park yet? I have some time to kill. Thought we'd…" he shrugged.

"Yes! Let's do this!" Abby turned to her computer and started bringing up the information on the park. They spent the next ten minutes going through the form that needed to be filled out, and then looked through pictures around the park, trying to decide where they would want to do the ceremony and set up the reception.

"You know that 'suddenly real' feeling you were just talking about?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah? It hitting you?" she asked with a smirk.

"Yup. It's pretty good!" Gibbs finished his coffee and smiled at Abby. "Thanks, Abs." He was getting up when Abby rested a hand on Gibbs' arm.

"Hold on! I just got an email from the director of park services! Let me see what it says."

Gibbs sat down, leaning forward to squint at Abby's screen.

"It's available Friday through Sunday night, but not Monday."

"Well, I guess it doesn't have to be Monday. Anytime that weekend is fine. I know Tony wants Shane to come down, and it's easier for Dad to get someone to watch the store for him on the weekends. What do you think?"

"Isn't that a question you should ask Tony?" Abby said with a chuckle.

"I think this entire thing has him overwhelmed. A specific date and venue might lay the groundwork for all the other plans, and take the pressure off."

"I can see that. I would go with Sunday night. Saturdays are naturally busier in any park. Sunday night might offer you a little more privacy."

"I can see that. Let's go ahead and set it up for Sunday."

"Okay, for the time frame we were talking about? Four to Ten?"

"Yeah. That gives the table people and caterers time to set up for a six o'clock ceremony, wouldn't you think?"

"Yeah. And actually, they'll probably have a little more time than that since the ceremony will probably be in a different area of the park from the reception, and then you'll have pictures…"

"Right."

"What type of food do you want to have, Gibbs?" Abby asked, gently prodding while she had his attention, and since he was proving to be much more cooperative about this whole planning thing than Tony had been.

"I don't know. I don't know if Ziva's guy caters, so I don't want to be… I don't know… insulting if I don't ask him, since he's probably going to be at the wedding."

Abby shook her head no. "Nope. He's not catering at all right now since he's opening the restaurant. I'm sure if you really wanted him to, he'd make an exception for you though."

Gibbs shrugged. "I don't know. Tony's friend Marcella owns Casimiro's. I wonder if she caters."

"Let me check that while we're in the zone," Abby said with a smirk, bringing it up online. "Why yes, yes they do. And she's gorgeous! Wow. How good of friends were they, Gibbs?" she asked, barely able to take her eyes away from the brunette's photo on the About Us section of the page. Gibbs chuckled.

"Just friends, Abs. She only goes one way, and it's the opposite direction of Tony."

"Ahhh…" Abby said as if though that answered the most mysterious question in the universe. "So, you think Tony would be okay with them catering?"

"I'm sure he would be okay with it, but I don't know if that's what he wants. At least we know now that they do. I'll bring it up to him and see what he wants."

"I think it sounds perfect. I mean, he knows the owner, so you know she'll make sure it's done right, I've heard it's amazing food, and you already know she'd be okay with catering a same-sex marriage."

Gibbs nodded. He hadn't really thought about the issue of some companies not being willing to cater to their wedding. "I'll talk to him about it. I should get back. Thanks Abs," he said, getting to his feet and kissing her temple, glad to be able to make a graceful escape despite the sudden kick to the gut he had felt by Abby's last point.

"Anytime, Gibbs! I mean it!" she said.

He left the lab and got a weird queasy feeling that was taking all the joy out of his day. He decided to make another stop before going upstairs, and headed towards autopsy. The doors swooshed open, and he wandered in.

"Good morning, Jethro!" Ducky greeted.

"Morning Duck."

"Morning Agent Gibbs," Palmer said, coming out of the lock up.

"Palmer," he said with a nod. He watched Palmer carry a tray of tools over to the sink to sterilize them.

"Come sit," Ducky instructed, and Gibbs did. "What is on your mind?"

"Been a crazy couple of days. Turned the case over to Tony."

"So I've heard. That was quite unselfish of you."

Gibbs shrugged. "Caused some tension between Tony and I when he took over, and then he mistook something I said as not having faith in him to be able to do the job. We worked that out I think though."

"That's good!" Ducky cheered, pouring some tea.

"We actually made a decision about the wedding this morning. We're going to have it over at Yards Park."

"Oh! That would be quite beautiful. They have a delightful color scheme in the gardens of hydrangea, cornflowers, lilies and veronica that makes the gardens a sea of blues and whites that time of year. I think it would complement both of your tastes. The elegance and urban feel, blended with the waterfront and natural landscaping."

"Yeah, we both liked the idea a lot. I had Abby help me confirm the reservations for the park for the Sunday of Labor Day weekend just now."

"Splendid! I will mark the calendar. Why do I have a feeling that there's more going on in there, Jethro?"

"I was roped into discussing possible caterers with Abby, and she pointed out that not all caterers are going to be okay with hosting a same-sex wedding reception. That's got me thinking about everything else that could go wrong."

"Such as?" Ducky asked gently.

"Having the wedding in a public venue is going to bring a lot of scrutiny on Tony's position as team leader. He's got a lot on his plate as is with the Stafford case turning up new matches here and there, and now going after the Qureshi faction… I just don't want him to burn out in his first six months. He's more than capable, I just love seeing him so happy. He really enjoys it, and he deserves every bit of accolade he gets and then some. I would hate to see Simmons come back at him, or Balboa get his shorts in a twist, and go after him, and suck the joy out of this for him."

"Jethro, he knows that's a possibility. There are so many people out there that aren't going to agree with your relationship, and each will have their own reasons. Anthony has already more than proved himself worthy of his position, and Leon supports the two of you to a surprisingly strong extent."

Palmer's voice rose over his sanitizing. "To hell with 'em. Why not cause a little controversy? Nothing ever got better when people hid in the shadows."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him, and Ducky turned to stare at him. Palmer turned to look back, noticing they'd both grown silent. "What? It's true. Name one same-sex couple in the agency. I bet you can't. But I bet you can name a dozen hetero couples, some of which are even further out of adherence than the two of you were. If it were me, and I were in your shoes, with your seniority, I wouldn't let anything keep me from having the perfect wedding."

"As you can see Jethro, there is not one among us that won't support any decision you want to make about your upcoming nuptials, and beyond. This is the last time you'll get to do this, and you know that your betrothed is only going to do this _once_. Make it a celebration you will never forget." Ducky reached out and laid his hand on Jethro's arm for a moment, and Jethro nodded.

"I just don't want the reason why it's so unforgettable to be because we're getting canned or picketed," he said, running a hand down his face.

"Let them try," Ducky said with a dark edge to his tone. "The very fact that the two of you are going to wed is as controversial as possible around here. You might as well do it the way you want to do it. Leave the rest of it to those of us who will always be there when trouble comes knocking at your and Anthony's door. We won't hesitate to cut them down to size."

Jethro smiled at that, and shook his head. His eyes looked back and forth between the two other men in the room who were giving him affirming looks.

"This could get ugly. Now that the venue is going to be confirmed, things are going to start to leak out, and if Simmons finds out, we're going to have a hell of a fight on our hands."

Both Ducky and Palmer shrugged.

"Didn't I hear she was engaged to, and pregnant by, an Admiral?" Palmer asked a little too innocently.

Jethro nodded, raising a curious eyebrow at him.

"I wonder how _that_ happened…" He said, turning back around to his instruments.

"What are you suggesting Mr. Palmer?" Ducky asked.

"Well, word around the Yard is that they met on a case. The rest is gossip. Now, I'm not saying we should trust gossip, but it might be worth looking into if you would like a little insurance. An ace up the sleeve, if you catch my drift."

"Duck, I don't know what you're teaching him, but he's getting shiftier and shiftier every time he opens his mouth," Jethro said with a smirk.

"I know," Ducky said with a chuckle. "I'm quite proud."

Palmer laughed as he ran a sterile wipe over a scalpel.

Jethro's phone rang in his pocket, and when he looked at the screen, he didn't recognize the number. He answered, and Ducky and Palmer both waited to see if a case was coming in that would require their services.

"Is this Jethro Gibbs?" a woman's voice answered on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, this is him."

"Hi! This is Mary Roberts from the Capital Riverfront planning team. I'm calling to confirm your online reservation for the overlook on September second, from 4PM to 10PM. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful! It says we're planning a wedding! Congratulations!"

"Thank you," he said, looking at Ducky and then Palmer as they stared on.

"A couple of things I wanted to let you know about," Mary continued. "There is catering available through our award winning dining services, and we also have seating arrangements available so that if you would like, we can supply the chairs, tables, table cloths, all of that for the reception, ceremony or both. You'll find information on that in the packet we'll be mailing to the address you provided, and much of the same information is included in the email you should have just received."

"Okay. I'll look that over," he said.

"Do you, by chance, have your catering company locked down yet?" she asked, her pep making him realize how Tony felt when Abby bombarded him with the planning details.

"No, but we have a few ideas."

"Wonderful. When you find out, if you could let us know so we can go ahead and get their staff listed in or records so they can have access to the areas they will need, that would be great!"

"Will do," he said, then pulled his notebook from his pocket and wrote that down so he wouldn't forget. He also made notes to check the cost of the seating arrangements in the information packet.

"It says on your application that you're expecting this to be a small, family affair. About twenty or so people?"

Gibbs nodded, wondering when he was going to get the woman off the phone. "Yes, somewhere between fifteen and twenty five people." He put his hand over the phone so Mary couldn't hear. "Until the picketers show up," he whispered.

Ducky raised an eyebrow at Palmer, who smiled broadly, realizing what was being discussed.

"Sometimes the smallest weddings are the most beautiful," Mary said with a dreamy sigh. "It takes so much of the chaos out of it, and the couples can just focus on each other. That's really what the day is supposed to be about. I've seen so many weddings turn into huge debacles, between the photographers and florists being late, meals being ruined, people storming out, and one time the groom and father-in-law got into it so bad, chairs were being thrown."

"I take it you've been doing this for a while," Jethro said with a chuckle.

"Twenty-five years in event planning. I have to tell you, being safe behind this desk is a big relief, but I kind of miss it when I think about the smaller events like what you're planning."

"I can guarantee no chairs will be thrown," he assured. "Is that all you need from me?"

"Yes. Everything you need to know is in your email, and you can call me with any questions you might have at the number listed any day of the week until 8PM."

"Thank you," Jethro said, eager to be free of the woman.

"You're welcome! And congratulations!" Jethro had never been so happy to hear a phone disconnect.

"Well, the site is confirmed, and can someone please explain how in the hell I ended up being the one planning this?"

"With Anthony loaded down, you may have to if you want it to ever happen," Ducky said.

"Yeah, I can see that. It's just, out of all of the times, I've done this, I've never been the one to have to make the decisions about _how_ it was being done."

"Maybe you should," Ducky said. "Have you ever considerd that perhaps this means for once, it just might go the way you want it to?"

Jethro grinned from ear to ear and shook his head. "If Tony's there, it's going the way I want it to." He got to his feet before he couldn't keep his foot out of his mouth. "I'd better get back upstairs before Ziva and McGee get roped into something they shouldn't."

He left autopsy and got on the elevator, hitting the button for the ground floor so he could grab another coffee. He was walking away from the barista when he got an idea. He pulled out his phone, and started pressing the buttons to send Tony a text.

_Yards Park is ours September 2nd. 4-10PM. That's the Sunday. Monday wasn't available._

He got off of the elevator, watching Tony closely as he headed for his desk. He saw him look down at his phone and waited. Tony sprung to his feet, turning around to lean over the partition with a bright smile that made Jethro's heart stop.

"For real!? Are you serious?!"

Jethro nodded, smiling back.

"That's so awesome!" Tony said, biting his lower lip as he tried to rein in his response so the people around him didn't pick up on anything they shouldn't. "Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome," Jethro whispered back. Their eyes were locked for a long moment before McGee cleared his throat, a warning he'd come to give them when they were being too obvious. They both nodded, and looked away. Tony sat down at his computer, and immediately sent a group IM to his team members, Jethro's, and the downstairs team.

TDiNozzo01: _Mark your calendars! September second, Yards Park! _

Multiple responses came back rapid fire.

TMcGee02: _For the wedding?_

ECritten01: _Wow! The park? That's awesome! _

_AScuito01: Isn't it perfect?!_

_ZDavid01: What a beautiful venue. Excellent decision!_

_GParke01: That's really cool! And ballsy being so close to the Yard. Right on!_

_NDorneget01: Yeah! Way to not let anything stand in your way of the perfect ceremony. Go for it!_

Tony considered the responses, and realized he should probably talk to Vance about it, or at least give him a heads up. They were travelling into murky waters by deciding to have it at the park, but Dorney was right- they weren't going to let anything stand in the way of their perfect ceremony. They both deserved it. He would have to put the conversation on hold though. They were knee deep in research on the Qureshis, and that had to take priority for now.

He decided he had one thing that was more important than that he had to attend to first. He opened up his email client and started typing.

_You never cease to amaze me. Just when I think that I'm the luckiest guy in the entire world, just when I think we couldn't get any better, just when I think you've completely stolen every bit of love from me possible, you do something like this, and you show me that no matter how incredible life is, by simply being together, it gets more incredible every day. _

_Love you, Jethro._

Jethro was going through the email sent from Mary Roberts when he saw the alert saying Tony had must emailed him. He opened it up and read it. He smiled to himself, re-reading it over and over again, unsure of what else to do, and each time he read it, he felt brighter and happier. Tony was right, only it wasn't just every day that got better, but every moment.


End file.
